The but is simply to remind people that programming can still be fun. Programming as a career? Not really.

If you don't believe me, that programming is still fun, go do some programming for your own personal project. (Still fun.)

(But, yeah, so glad to have left. I recall toward the end of my career, a coworker and I having lunch in Apple Park and sitting there, lost in thought watching a gardener tending the plants and trees in the center of the "park". When my co-worker started to say something about the gardener I knew instantly where his thoughts had also been going and what he was going to say next.)