Programmer Jeremy Scheff: Coding Agents Take Away the Joy of Puzzle-Solving, While Builder-Type Programmers Benefit
In 'My Obituary for Programming,' Jeremy Scheff draws a specific distinction: if what you enjoy is solving logic puzzles themselves, coding agents bring a real loss; if what you enjoy is getting systems built, large models are a continuing gift.
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Programmer Jeremy Scheff wrote a short piece titled 'My Obituary for Programming,' shared by open-source developer Simon Willison on his blog. His core observation: programming once was one of the greatest jobs imaginable, because you got paid to work on tricky little logic puzzles. The trickier the puzzle, the more you got paid. But even pretty simple puzzles were worth a lot of money because regular people just couldn't do them. You set the strategy, you made the timeline, you defined what was and was not possible.
But coding agents changed this structure. The distinction Jeremy Scheff draws is specific: if you are a programmer who thrives on building working systems and does not care too deeply about the problems solved along the way, LLMs are the gift that keeps on giving; if directly solving those problems was a big part of your enjoyment, the loss is very real.
This distinction splits the joy of programming into two halves: those who enjoy building systems find the tools getting smoother, while those who enjoy the solving itself find that pleasure being taken away.