[massung]

There’s two sides to your question, I think:

- professionally (for money) - personally (for knowledge’s sake)

Regarding the former, I’m nearing retirement age, so personally I don’t care as much; I’m no longer “investing [in] a dead craft”. Assuming it is dead (I don’t think it is).

Re the latter, I have rejected it. I love problem solving. And I consider programming a tool I use to solve problems. Regardless of whether it’s an LLM or my old C text book, if I limited myself to only what came before me, then I can’t possibly improve on the current situation. My solutions would be in a perpetual state of stagnation. I can’t speak for others, but that sounds boring AF to me.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

So then it's a life stage thing. You're already well established in your career, and you'd rather some intellectual engagement. There's nothing wrong with that.

A 22 year old fresh out of undergrad almost certainly wants actual money far more than they want intellectual engagement. Most of them are better served by picking up a boring workhorse language that they can reliably get paid to write. Inevitably some will speciate into more esoteric fields, but that's the exception, not the rule.