Ask HN: Can anyone find this programming essay?

I remember reading an essay, at least five years ago and maybe as many as ten, that made the point that a good programmer working with good abstractions could replace a whole team, specifically when working on the kind of boring line-of-business Java code that is 99% of software by LOC.

It contained a line something like this: "We're switching into a higher gear now. Can a human breathe pure oxygen? Can a programmer write pure business logic?"

I've tried exact text search with Google, HN title searches, and several attempts with Opus 5.5 on Extra effort. No dice.

Does anyone remember this essay? Did I dream it?

2 points | by mday27 1 hour ago

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