>> My bet is that change will be rapid and accelerating. <<

Absolutely. Would you want it any other way? Personally I would go crazy in a job where you do the exact same thing for 40 years and then they give you a gold watch or something. Sometimes I miss the days when I just about knew every file on my hard drive and every command in the FoxPro command manual, I won't deny it. But that world is gone. Developing modern software is complex, there's no two ways about it. Realizing you're going to have to fly blind some of the time is a little scary. But compared to the alternative of utter predictability? -- I'll take it. We're all lucky as hell to be in a field where we're paid to think rather than shingling roofs, cleaning out chicken houses, tightening lug nuts on tires on an assembly line (zzzt! zzzt! zzzt! hundreds of times an hour and you better make your quota), waiting tables, etc.

Mike