There's some truth to this, but unless you're in a senior architect position or starting a clean sheet project, it's unlikely that you'll have the freedom to ch

There's some truth to this, but unless you're in a senior architect position or starting a clean sheet project, it's unlikely that you'll have the freedom to choose your platform or framework as a programmer. Like pilots, most people will start out doing "short haul" work on existing equipment and routes. This means you'll have to learn the frameworks that your employer (or desired employer) uses. And those things, frameworks and platforms, are the biggest technical burdens for programmers today. The ability of the web to create what we used to call "interactive apps" (but are today just apps) has lead to the desire and expectation that all web content will take on this level of polish and appearance. While that's possible, it's also arduous. In today's world, you must also learn the frameworks, tooling, and CI/CD processes that lead to your work making it onto someone else's screen. That's a whole lot harder than what we used to do -- like when publishing meant copying a floppy and putting it in an envelope, for example. The ability of platforms to change their specs and rules all the time (and their insistence on doing so) is another new programmer burden. In the old days, one could write to a piece of hardware or OS and expect that code to run for a long time. Not so anymore. Now the hardware is virtualized and many layers of middleware and SaaS are required to make your code do anything. All of those are moving targets and will change out from under you, without your desire or permission, while you try to continue to deliver new code and service your old code. Finally, and this is the final nail in the coffin for some more experienced programmers, the misunderstanding of the concept of "agile" or "XP" and how it became scrum -- a series of micromanagement theatrics and paperwork pushing -- has made programming a lot more difficult and a lot less fun. One of the best parts of software development was the unpredictability and experimentation that led to innovative results and small, incremental improvements. Close contact with customers was also a hallmark of early software development. Today's top-down, "How long will it take you to write and debug a feature that doesn't exist?" management mentality cannot and does not lead to quality software, as everyone can tell. It does lead to programmer burnout, quiet quitting, and a lot of wasted time in dev shops.