I work in the fast food industry, don't code, and I'm not even particularly interested in tech, but spend hours reading the articles and comments here.
that's definitely the sort of thing i like about this place. i'd imagine programmers are very very heavily represented here, but it's nice that it's not to the exclusion of everyone else.
I was a network engineer and would do the same, can't place the exact reason why, but today i am a python programmer doing network automation. I do think HN had a major part to play in this change
Network Engineer here too. I learned to code with Python and now do full-time PowerShell automation at work. It completely changed my career. Best decision I ever made.