Programming languages having rigid syntax is like English being limited to the Latin alphabet - the opportunities for creativity lie in the combinations of higher level structures.
That's a good way to put it. The ones who think it's an uncreative field are usually the ones who struggled through learning the syntax, and therefore assumed that's what the hard part of the job is.
Thinking that an unambiguous syntax implies it's not creative means something that is creative must have an ambiguous syntax. That's on its face absurd, yet a weirdly common belief.
Thinking that an unambiguous syntax implies it's not creative means something that is creative must have an ambiguous syntax. That's on its face absurd, yet a weirdly common belief.