[mannyv]

The fact you think programming is about numbers shows you have no idea what programming is.

The fact is, programming at a high level means analyzing thousands of dimensions of information and flattening them out into something executable by a dumb machine.

We are literally expert at becoming experts.

For any given data set there are a number of possible interpretations. Is that notch natural? They say yes, but I'm sure others in the field disagree as well.

[EliRivers]

Perhaps I should reword my original comment. Here's the same meaning, expressed differently:

"Software engineers often have an unjustified belief that they are intuitive experts in fields in which they have no training or experience."

Including, very frequently, understanding written text.

[philipswood]

He didn't say programming is about numbers.

His claim was that programming is a simple kind of thinking. He gives two representative examples:

* The consideration of sorting algorithms (which in all fairness _is_ a staple in teaching algorithms), and

* The use of simple logic - such is representative of programming language specs.

I'd say that this is a fair summary - real life tends to be a lot more complicated that the problems faced by most programmers.

Even more brutally: he is aiming quite high, a lot of programming is the minor stitching together of APIs without making too big of a mess.

Few programmers ever seriously actually need to analyse thousands of dimensions of information - and I'd say that it is a safe bet that the ones who do are probably using numbers.

To "We are literally expert at becoming experts.", I'd reply with https://xkcd.com/1112/