For a subset of these detractors, it's their investment and personal moat building into learning syntax which is now being threatened to be obsoleted by natural language programming. Now people with domain knowledge are able to become developers, whereas previously domain experts relied on syntax writers to translate their requirements into reality.
The syntax writers may say: "I do more than write syntax! I think in systems, logic, processes, limits, edge cases, etc."
The response to that is: you don't need syntax to do that, yet until now syntax was the barrier to technical expression.
So ironically, when they show anger it is a form of hypocrisy: they already know that knowing how to write specific words is power. They're just upset that the specific words that matter have changed.
