I'd love to take a principled stance on this because I do consider code an art or at least a craft and I appreciate a program written in a unique and clever way. In retrospect, SO MANY of my personal projects[0][1][2][3] over the years were DSLs that affected how you write something and how pretty or type-safe the code ends up being. They are libraries that can only be appreciated by another programmer, they mean nothing to an end user. It appears that whole genre of library will mean nothing to anybody in a few years. Shoulder of Orion, Tannhauser Gate, etc. etc.

[0] https://github.com/rspeele/infix.el

[1] https://github.com/rspeele/LicenseToCIL

[2] https://github.com/fsprojects/Rezoom.SQL

[3] https://rspeele.github.io/FParsec-Pipes/Intro.html

Yet, it's utterly hopeless to try to take the same stance visual artists are nobly holding. Of the programs I use daily, how many have I ever even glanced at the source code? I could count them on my fingers. And I'm in the target audience: a programmer, enthusiastic about the trade, one who has contributed to open source...

Conclusion: within a rounding error of NOBODY cares about the code. Of the weavers who were displaced by the automated looms, or the furniture-makers displaced by mass produced pressboard, some of the most skilled could still ply their trade for the rich who wanted to flex their bespoke handmade goods. Programmers writing code by hand will not even have that luxury market. It makes me depressed but I don't see any way around it.

My hope is that I can use my knowledge, willingness to spend long hours fighting with a computer, and industry experience to at least make better software with agents than the average vibecoder. I sadly don't think I'll get anywhere trying to play John Henry vs. the Steam Drill, trying to beat it with my hand-typed code. Maybe somebody who's 10x the dev I am can do that, and Godspeed to them, but I thought I was pretty decent and I don't have a chance.

Hell, it's not even possible to prove any code was written by hand, other than by having uploaded it pre-2024ish. For this reason I really feel bad for those coming up right now, who have the same enthusiasm and fascination for Real Programming that I did, but no way to prove themselves and no motivation to in a world that values that skill less all the time.