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.