alt Hacker NewsIs it though? If it was that universal, we'd employ the best programmers as plumbers, since they have the best ability to master plumbing technology. There are limits, and I think the skill being to master programming technologies is a reasonable limit.
If you're a great programmer, can you can stop using Angular and master React? Yes. Can you stop telling the computer what to do, and master formal proof assistants? Maybe. Can you stop using the computer except as a tool and go master agricultural technology? Probably not. (Which is not to say you can't be a good programmer at an agritech company)
The “this wrecked my industry” sob story is especially rich when the vast majority of tech workers ability to demand premium salaries comes directly from creating software that makes existing jobs obsolete.
Let’s talk about the industries the computer killed: travel agents, musician, the entire film development industry, local newspapers built on classified ads, the encyclopedia industry, phone operators, projectionists, physical media industries, and a few dozen other random industries.
We aren’t special because we are coders. Creativity and engineering thoughtfulness will still exist even with LLMs, it will just take a different form.