I am very much torn between this on multiple levels.  On the most superficial level, I do not want development to become &quot;blue collar&quot; because I am a developer and don&#x27;t want to think of myself as blue collar.  With my personal bias out of the way:<p>Do you think it&#x27;s possible for development to be the new manufacturing?  I have been saying that it is for years now - but I don&#x27;t know if I truly believe it or not.  There is a large academic distinction between coding and manufacturing.  Solid middle class manufacturing jobs were mostly mindless monkey work.  Screw this on, put that in the hole it fits in, etc.  The more I work on this internal Java ERP&#x2F;CRM sites the more I think it is monkey work too, but when I take a step back I realize that I have been programming since I was 10 (16 years), I have a bachelors degree in computer science, I have several years of working experience and after work I go home and code.  The work generally seems like turn key work to me, but I&#x27;m not sure if that is true.  Basically I&#x27;m saying that I don&#x27;t necessarily believe the masses are smart enough to be developers even for shitty intranet applications