The basic premise of the article is that

systems programming=irrelevant bloat and abstraction

while

data reduction=definite purpose and utility

People writing python notebooks to do data analysis are probably fairly comparable to the scientific computing programmers of the past, but I feel like this picture tends to dismiss the computer science side of systems programming:things like GUIs, network code, processes and virtual memory, all the architectural aspects of computing.

One might prefer APL or Forth for writing one-page programs, and it's probably true that systems now are bloated relative to what they could be. Still, there is much of interest going on in a typical operating system, compiler or video game, while a typical data analysis notebook is IMO fairly dull and even basic, from a software angle.