Comment by tarsinge

Professionally programming is just a means to an end that is solving a business problem. Just like hammering nails or turning screws is not a job in itself. The craft is important, but ultimately what people pay for is a final product (a house, a bridge, a software that does X, etc.), and our job is to build something that match their constraints. What you describe is the equivalent of complex novel construction projects, not what the vast majority of the construction industry is about.

Building a house is like a CRUD app, it already was a solved problem technically. AI is like prefabs or power tools. If your job and what you were interested in was building houses AI is great. If you were a brick layer not so much.

Engineer is not an aggrandizing title, it’s the job. Being paid for the hobby of writing code was just an anomaly that AI will close in the majority of the industry IMO.