> A programmer should care a lot about the program, and a little less about the code
This gives me vibes of like saying to artists "you should care about the painting but less about the brushes and paints"
The tools you choose and the lines you scribe all contribute to the whole. It all matters to some extent
Also, newsflash: the code is the program
What the phrasing really meant was caring about the result, not the program, and it has the same energy as people saying mass-slopped books are as good as regular books because they are entertaining.
In the long run, what matters is the maintainability of the code. And the security, and the performance. All that comes from the code. The most beautiful code with proper layers of abstraction is gonna turn to shit when business needs come into play and there's not enough time to rearchitect the system properly.