OPENING Back in the good old days — the Golden Era of computing, roughly March 2025 — it was easy to separate the Real Programmers from the Quiche Eaters. Real Programmers orchestrated. Quiche Eaters typed. A Real Programmer said things like "spin up six subagents and gate on the eval suite," and the Quiche Eaters said things like "I prefer to understand my own code" — a sentence with the same energy as roasting your own coffee beans or churning your own butter. But times change. ...