To be fair, the compiler (as well as the Cobol compiler) did reduce the effort by a factor of perhaps 10.

So yes, you weren't coding in machine language any more, but the compiler was.

Yes, all these things are massive improvements.

It’s just an illusion that this somehow eliminates coding as an activity. You just code using a different, hopefully more productive language and/or mechanism.

Coding back in that day had a different meaning. Today it means any kind of coding--then it meant generating the assembler language.

It's interesting to me how the word coding has mostly replaced programming in many contexts. We now hear of efforts to teach kids "coding" when not long ago that would have been teaching "programming". It would be interesting to delve into why that change in language took place.

Right and today it means writing go or python and tomorrow it might mean talking to an ai about your problem.

This is pretty much the whole story of automation of work, running in fast-forward. The robots, I mean compilers, took 90% of the jobs which used to be performed by humans. And here we all are.

I guess it's the same with 'automobile'. In 20 years people will think it was silly we called it that way.