If you’ve ever solved a word problem in math, you’re a programmer. If you’ve ever modified a cooking recipe, you’re a programmer.

There is a quote from some guy (Weiner? Fuller? Brand?) about how the computer revolution never realized the potential of reducing the level of abstraction between ourselves, communities and natural world. Instead we’re using computers to further abstract and complexify our organizations and relationships (natural, social, financial, etc).

In regards to this specific article, it’s funny/sad that the argument being made is that programming enables you to lower the “work cost” by employing machines. Yet in the booming web development industry, the goal isn’t to employ machines to do bullshit tasks, it’s to get people to do them (and gain ad impressions as a result). Which is where I think this article breaks down: the goal of mechanization is not to increase overall productivity, but to increase human productivity (or rather, reduce labor costs). You layoff 10 linespeople and replace them with 1 person and a robot: human productivity went up 10 times and fuck those unemployed people.

Anyways, you should watch “All watched over by machines of loving grace” before it gets pulled down by YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2j3BhL47c