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I am very sympathetic to the feelings he's expressing. As a lifetime programmer, I know exactly what he's feeling. But for me, coding has always been a means to an end. I want to build a game or make an app or have a blog. As a coder, I could implement these things better/faster than others…

If your "end" is just for you, cool. But if it is for other people to use/enjoy you need to know that we can tell when something was created with passion and when something was created simply to exist and we overwhelming want the former.

What makes you think the specific tool I choose to use reflects how much passion and effort and love goes into something? Is my writing less my expression if I use a word processor instead of a typewriter? Your statement includes a great deal of assumption and borders on a puritanical view of life.

…but as a _solo_ developer, one with a family and a day-job, I could never really explore those projects on a reasonable timeframe. Since I've started exploring tools like Claude and Codex, I can actually explore an idea a few hours at a time instead of dedicating that time to boilerplate.

I know the issue is polarizing, but I feel like there's a reasonable middle-ground that exists. Agentic coding can allow developers to work at a _higher_ level. That may not be what folks want who enjoy programming. But it's amazing for those who want to make things.