The basic skill behind programming is thinking systematically. That's different from, say, knowing what exactly IEEE floats are or how to win arguments with the borrow checker in Rust. Languages like Python and BASIC really do enable the non-professional programmer who can do simple things and not have to take classes on data structures and algorithms, compilers and stuff.

People who get stuck fail to realize their goals, waste their time, and will eventually give up on using these tools.

As for slop blog stuff try

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2026/02/17/acting-...

https://productics.substack.com/p/the-paradox-of-ai-growth-w...

https://medium.com/@noah_25268/github-is-dying-and-developer...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47045804

But seriously, think about, people had basically the same brains 20,000 years ago and there were dyslexic people back then too but it didn't matter because there wasn't anything to read. Today computers reward the ability to think and punish reacting to vibes yet natural selection is a slow process.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

This is the common pitch, right down to recommending CP Snow.

It’s also horse-apples. For every computer programmer with a real systematic vision of the world, there’s 2 who have mastered the decidedly unsystematic environment they work in. This is because lots of business problems depend on knowing how IEEE floats work and arguing with eg the borrow checker in rust. Perhaps more than depend on systematics. Either way, a lot.

Even if we accept that real programming is systematic/logical and not about adapting to an environment, it sure as hell doesn’t present itself that way to users! The entire history of computing is serious engineers being frustrated that the machines they work with don’t allow them to speak in a language they consider logical and elegant. Even the example “non-professional” programming languages (or programming languages suitable for non-professional programmers) arose out of intentional design toward user adoption. I’m not saying that made them alike to agents. I’m saying that it’s REAL CLEAR that the coupling between what the user needs to do and the orderly logic of computation is fuzzy at best.