I received my first computer in 1980, a TRS-80 color computer, when I was a pre-teen. A few years later, I received a TRS-80 Model 100 laptop, and a few years after that, in 1987 or so, an Amiga 1000, which I used through university.

I agree with most of this article, but with one big difference: I still really enjoy programming, professionally and personally. (And maybe I'm over-stating the authors lack of enjoyment today.)

Back in the beginning, for me, there was the thrill of discovery, in a rather low-level sort of way. My first functional, written from scratch in BASIC program was enormously exciting. A couple of years later, as frustrations with the poor performance of a truly interpreted language pushed me toward learning a faster way, the same thrill was felt when my first machine language program started working. And then again with my first C program for the Amiga.

35 years later, I ask Google questions throughout day, every day, while I'm programming.

Sometimes I of think of it as a compiler for an optimized but very high level language. I rarely have to sweat the details, and when I come across a very powerful and clever solution (typically from Google), it doesn't really mean much to me, because I didn't 'earn' it. And I may or may not remember it in any detail, so I'll probably end up finding it again later.

But gcc does that same kind of thing, right? It converts C++ code into a highly optimized executable using all kinds of tricks that you probably don't know about, and that you very rarely need to explore. (Not never, though, given that every abstraction leaks over a long enough time period.)

The thrill I get today is from higher level and more abstract 'data and design things'. As one example, powerful and novel ways distributed systems can work together.

I'm intentionally leaving unaddressed a lot of the other interest, meaty things in the article, because nostalgia got the better of me.