I'm a 45 year Unix veteran and I'm here to tell you this: if you want to do programming as a hobby, more power to you. But if you try to make a career out of it, for the love of all that's holy, don't.

Programming is dead. What people call programming today is telling a machine what to code. You're trying to learn farrier skills in the age of automobiles.

My own job as a programmer has been suddenly obsoleted last year. I'm still doing manual programming, because I'm in charge of super-critical software stacks at work that our wise management doesn't trust AI to work on for love nor money, but this won't last. And so I requested to be transferred to sales, never to touch a keyboard ever again, and I'm in the process of transitioning. At my age, I had hoped to retire doing my thing until the end, but it's not gonna happen.

Don't become a farrier!