I reread this piece every few years and agree that there's no reason this discussion can't occur every few months/years on HN (so I'm upvoting this too).
And since there's a lack of comments on many of the threads, I'll add my opinion to this one. This was written by a man who's got a long-term love affair with programming. I recognize this because I am the same way, and it's actually rarer than you might think.
Most of the people who were my colleagues have gone on to management, or more likely switched to other careers. I've been in management repeatedly (even C-level) and have had to talk my way back into software architecture and development. I wrote my first program 41 years ago and it's still my favorite past-time.
And since there's a lack of comments on many of the threads, I'll add my opinion to this one. This was written by a man who's got a long-term love affair with programming. I recognize this because I am the same way, and it's actually rarer than you might think.
Most of the people who were my colleagues have gone on to management, or more likely switched to other careers. I've been in management repeatedly (even C-level) and have had to talk my way back into software architecture and development. I wrote my first program 41 years ago and it's still my favorite past-time.