in reply to The future of software design
If programming was going to turn into something like civil engineering or auto repair, it would have already. The computer industry is 50 years old.
Programming is not just about "design" or "repair" work. Sometimes it's more like archaeology or tool and die making. We're dealing with complex artifacts built by humans -- sometimes for completely unknown reasons. Frequently we're not powerful enough to solve problems directly so we must invent new tools.
Programming jobs also blur into many different fields. Industrial design, writing and economics are pieces of tasks that programmers usually end up doing themselves.
Anyways, the future is going to be a lot like today until a machine-mind interface appears (call the result a "Spiritual Machine" if you're a Kurzweil fan). I have no idea what will happen, but I expect programming will be the first field to find out.