An explosion of software is coming

Agentic coding tools are poised to trigger an explosion in software production, according to a technology commentator. The falling cost of development will enable companies to clear backlogs, build custom tools without dedicated teams, and eventually allow non-developers to create software in-house. This shift mirrors the early days of computing, when IBM's Thomas Watson was surprised by demand for 18 computers after expecting to sell only five.

When I was a kid, we all marveled at the notion of the Star Trek computer that you’d just talk to and that would answer all your questions. It seemed impossibly fantastic and categorically impossible. Well, we have that now. In one episode, Captain Kirk used a universal translator to communicate with an alien never mind that the aliens always seemed to speak English.. . Today, everyone’s phone can do real-time translations between all the most commonly spoken languages on the planet. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m bullish on agentic coding https://www.infoworld.com/article/4136718/claude-code-is-blowing-me-away.html . I think it’s marvelous https://www.infoworld.com/article/4143101/pity-the-developers-who-resist-agentic-coding.html , I think it will bring about an increase in software development jobs https://www.infoworld.com/article/4167463/no-ai-wont-destroy-software-development-jobs.html , and I think it will bring about unprecedented growth in the production of software https://www.infoworld.com/article/4149541/stop-worrying-instead-imagine-software-developers-next-great-pivot.html . It’s that last point I want to explore a bit more deeply, because I think an explosion of software is coming. Thomas Watson, the legendary IBM CEO, is often misquoted as saying, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” The true story is that he went out to talk to 20 customers, hoping to sell five IBM 701 computers, and ended up with 18 orders. Of course, today, computer sales are measured in the hundreds of millions. We are currently in the “loving the thought of getting 18 orders after expecting five” stage of software. We are just getting started. Mr. Watson probably couldn’t envision everyone walking around with a computer in their pocket that is a 100 million times more powerful than that IBM 701. And though I’m going to try, I’ll certainly come up way short of imagining a volume of software output that is eight orders of magnitude beyond what we are producing today. The first chunk of this blitz will be software that looks familiar and isn’t that surprising. It will be the software sitting in our backlogs — things we’ve wanted to do for years but haven’t had the time for. All software development houses have these projects, and now they will get done. This software will be an expansion of the software we currently have. The second chunk will come when companies without development teams realize they can build the software they need using consultancies that can deliver quickly and at minimal cost. They will develop software tools that fit their unique business needs. Instead of using off-the-shelf solutions that they adapt to their needs, they will build custom software that works exactly the way their companies do. The third chunk will come when those companies figure out that they can build the software they need themselves. Agentic coding tools will soon be powerful enough for non-developers to create the custom software a company needs, and they’ll be able to do these things in-house. The fourth wave is the one that really excites me — the wave of things we haven’t yet conceived of. I’d love to be able to tell you what that will be all about, but of course I can’t. It would be like someone telling you in 1988 about Google Maps, Wikipedia, ChatGPT, and Spotify. The cost of developing software is about to drop through the floor, causing the demand for software to shoot through the roof. Software has no real physical limitations, like bridges do — the only limitation is our imaginations, and that has proven to be boundless.