In the end, programming is commanding a computer system to do your bidding. If your goal is to make electronic metal music, or complex 3d designs, simulate fluid dynamics, or solve for wheel settings on the Enigma machine, those are all programming tasks. Some may involve long runtimes, but the programming is giving the instructions to execute.

Even formulas in Excel are programming. But make no mistake that programming and software engineering are very different tasks: the latter is about devising good designs that balance countervailing interests. Software engineers define the problem which programmers would command onto a computer to find a solution or produce a product.