My obituary for programming

What happened

Simon Willison highlights Jeremy Scheff’s account of what coding agents take away from programmers who enjoyed solving coding puzzles. Scheff describes a career that rewarded those puzzles and gave programmers control over strategy, timelines, and feasibility. Willison argues that LLMs are a continuing gift for programmers focused on building working systems, while the loss is real for those who enjoyed solving the underlying problems themselves.

The story so far

Simon Willison highlighted Jeremy Scheff’s account of what programmers lose when coding agents take over problems they enjoyed solving, while arguing that LLMs remain a continuing gift for programmers focused on building working systems. Scheff described a career that rewarded solving coding puzzles and gave programmers control over strategy, timelines, and judgments about feasibility. Willison’s distinction centers on what programmers value in the work: he sees benefits for those whose goal is a working system, while recognizing a real loss for those who enjoyed solving the underlying problems themselves.

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