How do you explain how programming works to complete non-techies?
bkovitz: A long time ago, I was at a client's site, and had to write code at a dumb terminal in the middle of the sales floor (I said this was a long time ago).  One of the salesmen walked by and saw me typing up a storm.  Impressed, he said, "Is there, like, a big chart that you have memorized?"I said, "No, I just make it up as I'm typing it."That explanation seemed to work well enough.