[le-mark]

I don't understand why we aren't all working on automating everything that we do.

All automation is not equal. For example there's automation that consists of stringing a bunch of scripts together that break as soon as anything changes. There's automation like code generators, which break as soon as a user modifies the code, and the code needs regenerating. Then there's this AI/ML code generation, which I can't see as being any different than "normal" code generators.

And finally, there's automation developers don't have to think about; like "if" statements. So called conditional statements were a brand new innovation at one point. They removed a whole class of bugs around conditional logic in assembler programs (at one time all programs were assembler, which was a major advance from writing machine instructions in hex).

In so many ways, the web is a victim of it's own success. None of the technolgoies in it are the best; html, css, javascript. Everyone wishes these things were more thought out in the beginning. But they were good enough, and what we had when the web exploded. Yes, Virginia, Worse Is Better more often than not [1]. Go read it, you'll be a better developer when you have (imo).

[1] https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html