Hamming was also writing from a highly privileged position. He was able to work at Bell Labs for the majority of his career. That just doesn’t exist today.

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is a great book but it needs context. The last edition was released in 1994. Programmers had a lot of labour power back then.

Today though? The median house costs more than a third of the median income. Inflation has raised costs of living to unsustainable levels. And for programmers there have been hundreds of thousands of layoffs since 2023 and a low number of job openings.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to take what job you can get or stay in a job you don’t care for until the trade winds return.