I'm not a programmer, but have a casual interest in the field, and read an article here and there to the point I think I have a little bit of insight, which I'll get to, but first, the joke...

"Learn to code" has specific context as a joke. In 2019, Biden had a rally in 2019 in West Virginia, where he advised coal miners to learn to code/program. It was a callous statement, I think in response to a question, and he was was basically telling them that he was going to get rid of their jobs in the pursuit of the green agenda. In this way, it was reminiscent of Marie Antoinette's, "Then let them eat cake" response in reply to hearing the peasants didn't have bread to eat. At it's heart, the joke is a joke by virtue of its flippant indifference to the suffering of people losing their livelihood.

This actually has bearing on your greater question. Coding isn't dead and there is some chance to still breaking in and having a decent career, but it's a largely mature / no longer booming industry at this point. (Recommending coal miners to just switch jobs and become programmers showed indifference to the fact that domestic employers have been increasingly screwing over their own programmers, replacing them with lower cost overseas options and H1B types, not to mention that becoming good at coding isn't for everyone.) And if you look at the news, many of the big tech companies are laying people off by the thousands (though how much of that is inefficient middle management positions vs programmers, I don't know).

The issue I think you're going to have to prepare for is that there is a glut of people on the front end who are vying for entry level positions and employers can afford to be picky and want to see you have some sort of portfolio of work... a catch-22 of sorts.

My intention here is NOT to black pill you on becoming a programmer. While there is a glut of people on the front end who try to break in to the industry, many lose hope and drop out of the race. If you're talented, and willing to put in the work on the front end and persevere (think: starving artists and actors who toil for a year(s) before breaking through) then you can succeed and have a good career. And as others have said, AI isn't there yet. People with good problem solving skills and ability to guide AI are still needed. Further, even if programming on the whole is not booming anymore, there are some subsectors which will be hotter than others for jobs. It's my understanding that data science, AI, and cybersecurity currently have better prospects for tech/programmers. And since governments are working towards implementing CBDCs, there will likely be a future in understanding and being able to create smart contracts in crypto ecosystems. Also, sometimes new languages emerge which fill a special need and quickly learning them can put you ahead of the pack. For instance, some are saying the new "Mojo" language combines the usability of Python with the perfomance of C and may displace the Rust language in a lot of AI/data science projects.

A few pieces of advice:

- If you're interested in the field, become interested in the field. I'm not in the field directly, but am interested enough that I've clicked on articles in my google news feed and various articles about data science, cybersecurity, etc. show up as recommended articles for me every day now.

- Someone else mentioned this in a way, but it's in your best interest to develop your skills with logic and system thinking to facilitate your problem solving skills. There are courses devoted to this. I would add continuing to hone your skill in math is useful as well, especially if you gravitate towards data science.

- Be prepared to join groups on Discord (but be awere of scammers) and Telegram, get on Github, etc. and volunteer on projects as you start to build skills and make a portfolio. Work begets work.

- Before you commit more money to buying courses, etc., you might also try free resources like:

freecodecamp
Freecodecamp has a ton of online courses, tutorials, certifications, etc. and a lot of supplementary youtube content.

Another good resource is Open Culture:
Open Culture
Scroll down to the Comp Sci section and there are hundreds of courses taught by professors from Stanford, MIT, Georgia Tech, Princeton, etc. as well as directly from Amazon, Google, etc. I think all of these are free to take if you are content to just learn. Many have an option to pay if you want to formally get credit / certified for taking the course.