I think that I may not have made my point clear. The point is not that we are superheroes for knowing how to program, but rather than learning to program is so cool that it's like having a super power, for what it enables you to build and do. If you read the article, you'll see that I mention how even "product guys" should learn how to program. In my next post, for example, I'll talk about how to learn programming as an absolute beginner. When it comes to programming I try to take a stance as far as possible from elitism.
Carpentry is a Super Power. The point is not that we are superheros for knowing how to build, but rather that learning to build is so cool that its like having a super power, for what it enables you to build and do.
Carpentry is a super power. Just about every girlfriend I've had has been very turned on by guys who can build things with their hands; my brother made a (successful) engagement ring out of 5 different kinds of Amazonian hardwoods that looked amazing. I think people like _why would agree that learning to create things, regardless of the medium, is so cool that it's like having a super power.
By this standard, pretty much anything that doesn't involve trivial desk job paper pushing is a super power. Bricklaying? Check. Welding? Check. Mech eng? Check. Digging ditches? Check. Everyone's special, Dash.
I see a fairly natural superpower line with welding and mechanical engineering (alongside machining or some rapid prototyping ability) on one side, and bricklaying, ditch digging, etc. on the other side.
Bricklayers and ditch diggers don't often think of something cool and then make it happen with those particular skills.
I've been learning to weld (using the TIG process) and it does have that cool mixture of being able to produce amazing, strong physical objects and also being Dark Magick for the average person. The TIG process in particular is a mixture of science and art that makes you feel like a wizard when you start getting good at it.
Watching a professional bricklayer work is pretty mesmerizing. The really good ones achieve this rhythmic action where they seem to manage to quickly and accurately place and set every brick while taking advantage of inertia of the moving bricks to expend the minimum physical energy possible.
I don't think there are any ditchdiggers left in the united states though, only bobcat or backhoe operators.
Watching the complex and beautiful movements of the various parts of the engine, the raw power, the drama, it took superhumans to figure this out, to contain tons of iron and steel, and water, and fire and turn it into something so exquisite and powerful.
Bricklaying (and construction methods in general) let us build useful, comfortable buildings that protect us from the elements and let us build cities. Agriculture lets us feed our whole population; without modern agriculture we would have mass famine. And while we're on the subject of agriculture, there are some supporting technologies that we shouldn't forget; the Haber-Bosch process, for example, has the power to miraculously convert nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia that we can use as fertilizer, on an industrial scale. Without it, we would starve.
We take all this stuff for granted, but damn it, don't these count as super-powers?
Yeah. And without organizers and managers the complex system is likely to collapse, and without truck drivers and rail workers food can't get to people choose to live. Don't me wrong - I appreciate the complexity of society as much as the next guy, but there's so many people involved that calling everything necessary for people not to starve "super powers" causes the term to completely wash out.
Everyone's special. Which is another way of saying no one is.
> The point is not that we are superheroes for knowing how to program, but rather than learning to program is so cool that it's like having a super power, for what it enables you to build and do
Programming isn't a super power. It isn't even like a super power. It's a skill.
It's like any other skill: when you're good at it, it allows you to do things nobody else can do, and you make difficult and challenging tasks look effortless.
I know you say you're standing away from elitism, but things like "even "product guys" should learn how to program" certainly smacks of it. There's no doubt, programming computers is pretty astounding. But so is cold-calling someone and convincing them to give you thousands of dollars for software they may never have heard of. So is building and maintaining the hardware that modern software runs atop.
