It's praiseworthy to take interest in programming if a game encourages you to as an example. Even if it wakes your interest of how things work in the background of a particular game, like Factorio. Programming however is not something easy to "learn"... it's rather a different point of viewing ...

I made it beyond 500h mark. Never invested so much time to any other game. Already convinced 3 more friends Worth every penny.

It's an improvement to the game - no reason to be discouraged by people that don't like a change... After all, like you mentioned, game is still in development. Anyone playing at this point has to count with adjustments and adapt. Me personally, I'm looking forward to the updated UI.