How do you explain how programming works to complete non-techies?
lucifer: Try this:  Imagine you have a machine to create fabrics that has a set of spools of various colored threads.  Now this loom also has the feature of being able to read a sheet of paper punched with holes that automatically selects different colored threads whenever it reads a line, so that by changing the pattern of punched holes in a given line, a specified pattern is woven in the fabric.  So by feeding the machine different rolls of punched hole paper, we can create distinct fabrics.The computer is the loom; information and data are the colored threads; a program is a sheet of punched holed paper; and I, the programmer, am the guy who punches out the holes.http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3015/2589909998_6572e538c3.jp...