I agree. Actually, I have never met anyone who has liked writing code. How much code do any of these high profile programmers even write anymore? Linus, etc? If the leaders of the industry don't even write code, it says a lot.
I've been a full time software engineer (now lead) for the last 9 years. I've been in similar situations to this article where most of my time was spent in useless meetings that I disliked, I tried to improve things, to focus meetings, to improve our efficiency.
And all that aside I still love coding. Granted not all types of code, not the one I have to write sometimes at work.
Just now I'm starting another little fun side project that I've been coding on my free time these last few weeks.
All this is to say that coding is just a little tool, what you build with the tool is what can be fun. I think it can be healthy to write code that does fun things from time to time, even if the code you write at work is for the most boring aim.
Linus doesn’t write any code, in his own words, but that’s in part because his knowledge of software makes him better at leading people than writing code now. But Linus is not all leaders of the industry, many of them still do write code. John Carmack still writes code. That said, why should high profile programmers continue to code? What exactly does it say if they move into management?
This is mainly because most other people can execute with a better level of completeness than I can in the context of open source dev. This is mainly because I don't actually like programming, but I sure as shit love the niche I am programming for...