The main problem with "coding", which used to be called "programming" and with "engineers", who used to be called "programmers" is that, sshhhhh, it's not actually that hard or that intellectually interesting unless you're at the top .1% or so of the field. Which you aren't.

by which I'm trying say "coders" think they are very smart, when the level of brains needed is only bright average.

This is because there is a shortage of "coders", so they are paid well, and people who are paid well think they must be very smart, and everyone paid less, stupid

whereas all that is going on is that "coders" occupy a good market position. Eventually that market position will go away and they will go back to being nobodies, like when "computer girls" were the coders.

Folks. Back when I programmed you could not go online and ask questions (well, some BBS's), code-libraries were small to non-existent and if something didn't work I had to figure it out myself or ask a meatspace friend to look at it.

there is an assumption among too many coders that being a coder proves they are particularly smart.

It doesn't. That is all. It is an activity which requires bright-average intelligence, as it is done by most people.

Go get your PhD in physics or math, then brag (but you won't)

any skill, which is not harmful to others, done well, is worthy of respect. That certainly includes coding, along with farming, fishing and, well, anything which actually needs to be done and doesn't do more evil than good.

Coding is just the skill of this market period.

I could go farther, and say something like "most code is, in fact, bad" but I've been out of the game for over 20 years now, so I won't.

But there are people in the game still who think so. Impressive people.

but also it wouldn't, in some ways, be fair, because most people doing most things are mediocre. That's the human condition, especially when we are forced to do things we wouldn't otherwise do.