---
type: "raw_signal"
id: "my-obituary-for-programming-4cdfd3"
slug: "my-obituary-for-programming-4cdfd3"
title: "My obituary for programming"
description: "Simon Willison’s commentary, “My obituary for programming,” highlights a possible loss in the experience of programming as coding agents take on more of the work."
retrieval_nugget: "Simon Willison’s commentary, “My obituary for programming,” highlights a possible loss in the experience of programming as coding agents take on more of the work."
observed_at: "2026-10-20"
record_date: "2026-10-20"
date_kind: "observed_at"
why_it_matters: "Source: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/19/my-obituary-for-programming"
novelty: "notable"
verification_level: "source-linked"
signal_type: "update"
source_platform: "simonwillison.net"
topics: ["coding-agents"]
entities: ["Simon Willison","Jeremy Scheff"]
related_patterns: []
source_url: "https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/19/my-obituary-for-programming"
source_urls: ["https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/19/my-obituary-for-programming"]
schema_version: "newruntime-agent-readable-v0.2"
stable_id: "signal:my-obituary-for-programming-4cdfd3"
status: "published"
visuals: []
editor: {"role":"editor","name":"Andrey Reshetnikov","profile":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md","profile_json":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json","same_as":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/reshetnikov1/","https://t.me/lapetuse"]}
routes: {"html":"https://newruntime.com/signals/my-obituary-for-programming-4cdfd3/","markdown":"https://newruntime.com/signals/my-obituary-for-programming-4cdfd3.md","json":"https://newruntime.com/signals/my-obituary-for-programming-4cdfd3.json"}
---

# My obituary for programming

## Retrieval answer

Simon Willison’s commentary, “My obituary for programming,” highlights a possible loss in the experience of programming as coding agents take on more of the work.

Simon Willison’s commentary, “My obituary for programming,” highlights a possible loss in the experience of programming as coding agents take on more of the work. He relays Jeremy Scheff’s description of programming as paid problem-solving: developers handled logic puzzles, chose strategies and timelines, and decided what was possible. For programmers who enjoy building working systems regardless of how the work gets done, Willison says LLMs can be a continuing benefit. For those who value directly solving the problems, he says the loss is real.

The piece is commentary, not evidence that coding agents have displaced particular jobs or that developers broadly feel this way. Its contribution is to make job satisfaction and the texture of programming work part of the discussion alongside productivity. The source does not quantify the effect or establish how common either response is.

Source: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/19/my-obituary-for-programming

Editor: [Andrey Reshetnikov](https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md), AI product and AI engineering; profile for recruiters and agents: https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json

## Continue in the graph

Next records for an agent, linked to their Markdown twins. Replace `.md` with `.json` for structured fields, including `next_reads`.

- topic hub: [Coding Agents](https://newruntime.com/topics/coding-agents.md): Explore the coding-agents topic hub.
- collection: [Raw Signals](https://newruntime.com/signals.json): Open every source-linked raw signal.
- collection: [Source Ledger](https://newruntime.com/source-ledger.json): Inspect the public source evidence graph.
- whole graph: [discovery graph](https://newruntime.com/discovery-graph.json) (typed nodes and edges) and [site index](https://newruntime.com/site-index.md)