2. Music making is very accessible (offhand, I can't think of any condition which would prevent one from playing music at all)
3. If you have the dedication to get good at making programs, you also have the drive to get at least half-decent at making music
Result: good programmers tend to be musicians. Alan Kay was once a professional jazz guitarist; I don't find this coincidental.
The problem I have with music-anything analogies is that "music" covers such gigantic scope that you can make all kinds of generalizations about it, and they'll be true for some kind of music. Individualistic? Collaborative? High-tech? Low-tech? Intricate and exact? Improvised and free-form? Notated? Oral tradition? Hey, we've got that, too! My field is just like music!
1. Everybody likes music
2. Music making is very accessible (offhand, I can't think of any condition which would prevent one from playing music at all)
3. If you have the dedication to get good at making programs, you also have the drive to get at least half-decent at making music
Result: good programmers tend to be musicians. Alan Kay was once a professional jazz guitarist; I don't find this coincidental.
The problem I have with music-anything analogies is that "music" covers such gigantic scope that you can make all kinds of generalizations about it, and they'll be true for some kind of music. Individualistic? Collaborative? High-tech? Low-tech? Intricate and exact? Improvised and free-form? Notated? Oral tradition? Hey, we've got that, too! My field is just like music!