The low level programmer is obviously not gone, as other people have already mentioned. Rather, what I think most of us who've been through a few decades of development can see, is that the hobbyist has become a different kind of person. Years ago, all the hobbyists would go "Oooh! I finally managed to print ASCII on the screen. Ok, now let's spend another day trying to get it working in color!" In 2012, there is (in most cases) very little point in doing this, and the 'hobbyists' we see now are mostly building websites 'n stuff.
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The low level programmer is obviously not gone, as other people have already mentioned. Rather, what I think most of us who've been through a few decades of development can see, is that the hobbyist has become a different kind of person. Years ago, all the hobbyists would go "Oooh! I finally managed to print ASCII on the screen. Ok, now let's spend another day trying to get it working in color!" In 2012, there is (in most cases) very little point in doing this, and the 'hobbyists' we see now are mostly building websites 'n stuff.