Hi Folks,
I recently have started taking some evening university courses working towards a BTI (Bachelor of Technology Information). One of the courses deals with social, legal and ethical issues in computing, a very interesting group of topics. It has been about 20 years since last going to university, boy is it a strange feeling. 
One of the things I have to do for this class is a presentation/report on a topic relating to computing. This brings me to my questions.

How do you feel about programming and programmers today vs. your experience of years ago? 
Do you think programming is easier or harder today?
Do you think the new programmers entering the world today are as prepared and capable as those of us who entered the field 20 years ago?
Do new programmers really understand programming or is it all just point and click? 
I know there are programmers who use the latest tools and have never written a line of code, is this still programming?
The technology behind computing has really changed over the last number of years, but has programming?
When I first started in programming the basics of programming were simple, you were only adding, changing, deleting or displaying information. Has this changed today or are we just doing the same things but spending more time and resources on making the presentation pretty?

I would appreciate any other comments you would  care to make.

If you do send me a response please indicate the number of years you have been in the computing field. All respondents will be getting honorable mention in my report.

Thanks in advance

Gary Nolan