[lambdasquirrel]

Programming isn't hard. It isn't easy either, but it isn't hard.

I think the thing about programming is that so much of the "old" world misunderstood how it was hard. There is a lot more creative process stuff involved with programming, and not nearly as much that is codified, that you need to study, as in other fields like physics. And so, it gives people wide leeway to footgun themselves. Just as much, going the other way, it puts a premium on the ability to think and reason in abstractions, to which point, we don't have as strong a "liberal arts" for the STEM world as we do for the literary / humanities / cultural world.

So yes, on one hand, programming is not as hard as physics (to make one example of it). But on the other hand, I knew a person or two doing research in physics who complained how much their work was held back because their colleagues didn't appreciate the effort it took to process all the data that came from their experiments. Folks didn't appreciate how critical all that code was to their research. We see this sort of dynamic replicated throughout the rest of the world.

[kazinator]

Programming isn't hard if you exclude debugging as being a different activity.

[lambdasquirrel]

I think it elevates it to the level of other STEM fields, but I wouldn't put it over wrapping your head around Lagrangians or figuring out where the noise in your experiment is coming from.

What'd I'd say though is that managing the process of shipping software isn't easy. e.g. building AWS was probably not easy. But then again, building a tokamak or a stellarator is not easy either.

[kazinator]

You can get help with Lagrangians; they are not your original work; other people understand them.

In debugging there are situations in which nobody can help you. There are people with good debugging skills, but only you know that code.

There are no papers or books about the bug in your program.