> doesn’t feel much like slinging code at all.

This really depends on how you look at code.

Do you write code because it's fun? Good, because you'll have a lot more flexibility around that in the future.

Are there parts of coding you don't like? Great, you will probably enjoy what's next.

If you answered no to those questions, you are slinging code in the worst way possible, in terms of feelings, per the author's choice of perspectives on coding.

Feelings about coding are by nature--and ought to be--ephemeral, deep, and nuanced. I wouldn't spend too much time asking what the feel of coding will be in the future, in terms of some single feel...unless feeling just really isn't interesting to you.

What I'd ask is:

- Will "what's left" really only resolve to one thing we'll "feel about"? Has that ever happened?

- Do we really think coding is just this "syntax, oft highlighted" experience? To me, it's far more symbolic and psychological than that. If you make yourself a schedule for the day, you are coding. You don't like that? OK, you probably code in some other way--maybe manipulating the boss is more your thing, which is also a form of coding.

- What if we view coders as an interface between humans and code (or even coded results), rather than simple code-typers? As people who have energy to think in a certain way at length, in depth, over time?

To me this is an extremely powerful lens on what will likely happen. Some subjective probability in use here maybe, but maybe that's OK since we've really only discussed subjective feeling thus far...?

I don't think prompt typing will even be the most of it. But I do harbor a stubborn intuition that higher-level logic will be massively involved in what's next. Those places above the current coder's heads where business strategies decide what code is or isn't written will likely need more of the same kind of coder who will have to shift roles a bit, and still sling logic in rigorous ways.

(Oh and speaking of stubborn ideas, I think any boss who feels like it will still figure out ways to let their favorite coder use VB6. It's always important to separate a fear of what may amount to impending nostalgia from the actual question of whether one will still be able to arrange for access to N-years-ago's way of doing things...)

P.S. The physical labor discussion is pretty amusing to me, because here you have people who, by their own indication in career tests, etc. don't even like to use conceptual perspective-taking as a tool on the job, compared with say the sensory experience of physical work.

Anyone who can even string together a couple of LLM-style prompts in a logical manner toward some business-logic goal is going to want to think twice about whether they really understand the ground-floor operations over at the tech worker's hobby-fantasy-phenomenon-zone that is physical labor.

Can you effectively create, and work to, a plan? If so, uh oh--careful what side of yourself you present as career-facing. Planning and conceptualization is not at all a sensory pursuit or any kind of physical labor, and is a common topic for jokes in that world.

Plus, it's not only possible to have a blind spot that conceals from an individual the big-picture, career-scoped value of their own innate talent--it actually happens all the time. A genius of a planner may think, "planning is no big deal, but now...hard labor! Now we are talking." Kaboom, a classic quarterlife or midlife-crisis career issue is formed.

It's one of the biggest traps this career coach has ever heard of, and heard experiences with, again and again...