Someone who can write assembly will always be at an advantage over someone who can’t. Yes even in the agentic era.

This feels like a photographer telling a painter that they're at a massive disadvantage and that no human paints by hand anymore. Meanwhile painters still exist and are probably not particularly upset by how many pictures per second a DSLR can do.

> like someone writing out machine code by hand vs using a compiler back in the day

Programming using a compiler is still the same kind of thing, just in a different language.

I was a programmer back in the day. That statement is simply misinformed.

This is a silly take. I think you underestimate how talented some programmers can be. I think you also overestimate how far being good at coding will get you. Pre-LLM, the job was maybe 30% coding. So at worst someone who codes by hand is only disadvantaged by a manageable amount.