There are better tools for software developers now than in e.g. 1996, so the pace of writing software has indeed increased, but certainly there has not been any 100x speed up.

At best there may have been a doubling of the speed, though something like +50% is much more likely.

Between e.g. 1980 and 1995 the speed of writing documentation has increased much faster than the speed of writing programs has ever increased, due to the generalization of the use of word processors on personal computers, instead of using typewriting machines.

Many software projects might be completed today much faster than in the past only when they do not start from zero, but they are able to reuse various libraries or program components from past projects, so the part that is actually written now is very small. Using an AI coding assistant does exactly the same thing, except that it automates the search through past programs and it also circumvents the copyright barriers that would prevent the reuse of programs in many cases.

While I agree with the article, the reducing of the number of technical writers due to the belief that their absence can be compensated by AI is just the most recent step of a continuous process of degradation of the technical documentation that has characterized the last 3 decades.

During the nineties of the last century I was still naive enough to believe that the great improvements in technology, i.e. the widespread availability of powerful word processors and the availability of the Internet for extremely cheap distribution will lead to an improvement in the quality of technical documentation and to easy access to it for everybody.

The reverse has happened, the quality of the technical documentation has become worse and worse, with very rare exceptions, and the access to much of what has remained has become very restricted, either by requiring NDAs or by requiring very high prices (e.g. big annual fees for membership to some industry standards organization).

A likely explanation for the worse and worse technical documentation is a reduction in the number of professional technical writers.

It is very obvious that the current management of most big companies does not understand at all the value of competent technical writers and of good product documentation; not only for their customers and potential customers, but also for their internal R&D teams or customer support teams.

I have worked for several decades at many companies, very big and very small, on several continents, but, unfortunately only at one of them the importance of technical documentation was well understood by the management, therefore the hardware and software developers had an adequate amount of time planned for writing documentation in their schedules for product development. Despite the fact that the project schedules at that company appeared to allocate much more time for "non-productive tasks" like documentation, than in other places, in reality it was there where the R&D projects were completed the fastest and with the least delays over the initially estimated completion time, one important factor being that every developer understood very well what must be done in the future and what has already been done and why.

Iran's elections 75 years ago were about as democratic as North Korea's. They were just theater. Everyone was involved in rigging, candidates, the monarchy, foreign nations, etc., Mosaddegh included.

And peace and tranquility? Iran was in economic chaos before the PM was dismissed in 1953. They were printing money to pay salaries because the British refused to transport their oil, cutting off their main source of income.

No, the modern ideas are fine for what they are. You can disagree with them if you want, but they are just ideas and for many people they are good.

The problem is we are setting government policy based on a one-size fits all idea of expectations and those who don't want those are forced to either follow anyway or live a worse life in other ways for not.

Think what's going on in Iran is very sad, but from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media, that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.

does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.

you may ask what has the above goto do with a tech article on Iran blocking the internet, its basically just how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid) that is, oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood, the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life which is obviously terrible just feels like even tech articles have become partisan.