My wife knits. Yes, it’s like coding: it has a language, there are algorithms, instruction-sets and tools. And sometimes bugs you have to back-step to correct.
In fact some of the earliest programmable machines were weaving looms, automatically generating complex patterns. And, of course, this spurred the earliest protests against job losses to automation, with the Luddite movement.
My girlfriend knits too, and I think it's a toss up on which one of us curses more. Me when I realize the stupid thing I did which had been eluding me for the past hour, or her when she realizes how many rows she has to undo to get back to the point the incorrect stitch was made. At least I can just highlight, delete or just hit cmd-z. It can take her quite a bit more time to undo.
Without knowing what is being knitted, you may not be able to perform those techniques easily. Try that for a lace pattern with a finer yarn. Even frogging can be difficult.
So, if the comment isn't negative, then what is its content? Your explication https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19950959 points out the puns/jokes/over-literal descriptions (which, indeed, I missed on first read), but I still don't understand what the point of the comment was—the descriptions don't help me understand anything about the idea of knitting as coding.
It's a comment. It's meant to be fun -- the title got to have fun and play around with words, why can't we?
How I thought this would go: 30 upvotes and tons of people replying with more clever/forced programming languages fitting in that format.
How this went: no one gets it because everyone here is so ready for a fight that they don't even try to understand what people are saying, and the downvotes pile up. Deng swoops in and posts his generic "dont dismiss people's comments" message, which is hilarious because that's exactly what he did and it's exactly what you did.
There's two aspects to a joke that are equally important: one is being clever, the other is reading the room. A witty remark delivered in a snide tone followed up with a hot punchline is good for some lulz, but it's kinda like making a joke at the expense of the bartender who works at the comedy club every night.