[kranner]

> I was careful to say "Good code still has a cost" ...

Misleading headline, with the qualifier buried six paragraphs deep. You have a wide enough readership (and well deserved too). Clickbait tactics feel a little out of place on your blog.

[simonw]

This is the chapter title for a sort-of book I'm working on, and it's the central philosophy I'm building the book around.

I'm not going to change a good chapter title (and I do think it's a good chapter title) just because people on Hacker News won't read a few paragraphs of content.

A dishonest title would be "Code is cheap now" or "Programming is cheap now". I picked "Writing code is cheap now" to capture that specifically the bit where you type code into a computer is the thing that's cheap.

[kranner]

Fairly esoteric and self-serving definition of "writing code" if it represents just the typing part. I wouldn't call it a dishonest title, but perhaps not a fully honest one either.