Smith's view of specialization is not the same as today's "interchangeable cogs" view of disposable labor. He's talking about skilled crafts- and trades-man who can both use specialized machinery and acquire skill in its use, as well as avoiding the task-switching costs of single-person fabrication. Smith talks of market clearing not in hours or days, but months and years. His view of labor mobility tends to be generational rather than of a person having multiple careers in a single lifetime, as is the present fashion.
And while a given software program on its own won't generally improve performance over time (absent some learning and adaptive algorithms, though these are still in very limited use), in an appropriate (e.g.: Free Software or other iterative / continuous improvement) environment, coders will make incremental changes to code, which is far easier to accomplish when a program does a single, clearly identifiable task (or can be divided into modules which perform similarly).
Smith's use of the "invisible hand" analogy is a grossly misinterpreted and minor element within The Wealth of Nations.
And while a given software program on its own won't generally improve performance over time (absent some learning and adaptive algorithms, though these are still in very limited use), in an appropriate (e.g.: Free Software or other iterative / continuous improvement) environment, coders will make incremental changes to code, which is far easier to accomplish when a program does a single, clearly identifiable task (or can be divided into modules which perform similarly).
Smith's use of the "invisible hand" analogy is a grossly misinterpreted and minor element within The Wealth of Nations.