I'm referring to the tropes of this tired-ass debate, I'm not saying there's any merit to any of them. My heckle is mainly concerned with the lack of substance, even cliched or overused substance, behind the argument you're trying to make. It sounds, based on the disrespectful way you describe coders as "syntax apes", that you don't really understand the craft of software development, the principles of engineering practice, or how the two intersect.

You sound like a clueless manager who thinks of devs as interchangeable and easily replaceable cogs in a software factory.