Programmers mourn the end of coding as a puzzle they loved solving

A job built on puzzles

For decades, programming has been one of the most rewarding careers you could imagine. People got paid to solve tricky logic puzzles every day. The harder the puzzle, the more money they made. Even simple puzzles were worth a lot because regular people could not do them. Companies needed programmers to figure things out.

Jeremy Scheff, a journalist who writes about technology, recently shared his thoughts on what is being lost. He described programming as having once been a job where you set your own strategy, made your own timeline, and defined what was possible. You got to solve the problem in your own way ¹.

Enter coding agents

Now, AI coding agents are changing all of that. These are systems built on large language models, or LLMs, that can write code on their own. For companies, they are efficient tools. But for the people who love the craft of programming, they represent a deep personal loss.

Scheff said this situation captures "the key loss caused by coding agents for career programmers who enjoyed the puzzle of developing code" ¹.

Simon Willison, a well-known developer and writer, shared Scheff's post on his blog, noting the emotional weight behind it ¹.

Not everyone feels the same

The shift is not equally painful for everyone. Some programmers focus mainly on building working systems. For those people, LLMs and coding agents are a gift. The work still gets done, and it often gets done faster.

But if the joy came from directly solving the problems themselves, the loss is real and personal. These developers do not just want a result. They wanted the journey of working through the puzzle.

That part of the job is now slipping away. What remains is the satisfaction of seeing something work, but without the creative challenge that made many programmers fall in love with the field in the first place ¹.

Key facts

Jeremy Scheff wrote about the emotional loss programmers feel as AI coding agents take over their work
Programming was once seen as a highly paid career centered on solving logic puzzles
Programmers who love building working systems may benefit from LLMs, while those who enjoy the puzzle feel a deep loss
Simon Willison shared Scheff's reflection on his blog in October 2026
Coding agents are AI systems that can write code independently