To solve problems. Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself.
> careful configuration of our editor, tinkering with dot files, and dev environments
That may be fun for you, but it doesn’t add value. It’s accidental complexity that I am happy to delegate.
You can also solve problems as a local handyman but that doesn’t pad the 401K quite as well as a career in software.
I feel like there’s a lot of tech-fetishist right now on the “if you don’t deeply love to write code then just leave!” train without somehow realizing that most of us have our jobs because we need to pay bills, not because it’s our burning passion.
(Given how massively widespread piracy was back then, programming looked rather like a good way to do hard work for free.)
Money matters, but coders who were drawn into the field purely by money and are personally detached from the substance of the job is an unknown species for me.
"You can also solve problems as a local handyman"
That is NOT the same sort of talent. My fingers are clumsy; my mind is not.
> That is NOT the same sort of talent. My fingers are clumsy; my mind is not.
if handyman work was paying $600/hr your fingers would un-clums themselves reaaaaaaly fast :)
I don't believe that. When it comes to motoric skills, including dancing etc., I am probably in the lowest quintile of the population.
Of course, I could become somewhat better by spending crazy amounts of time on training, but I would still be non-competitive even in comparison with an average person.
OTOH I am pretty good at writing prose/commentary, even though it is not a particulary lucrative activity, to the degree of being a fairly known author in Czechia. My tenth book is just out.
Talents are weird and seem to have mind of their own. I never planned to become an author, but something inside just wanted out. My first book was published just a few days shy of my 40th birthday, so not a "youthful experiment" by any means.
It feels like we’re all going to have to have a reinvention or two ahead of us.
Additionally in many countries, being a developer is an office worker like everyone else, there isn't SV lottery level salaries.
In fact, those of us that rather stay programmers beyond 30 years old are usually seen as failure, from society point of view, where is our hunger for career and climbing up the ladder?
Now the whole set of SaaS products, with low code integrations, that were already a bit depressing from programmer point of view, are getting AI agents as well.
It feels like coding as in the old days is increasingly being left for hobby coding, or a few selected ones working on industry infrastructure products/frameworks.