What are the craziest misconceptions you’ve heard about programming from people not familiar with it?

Gianni R@lemmy.ml to Programming@programming.dev – 114 points –

As someone who spends time programming, I of course find myself in conversations with people who aren't as familiar with it. It doesn't happen all the time, but these discussions can lead to people coming up with some pretty wild misconceptions about what programming is and what programmers do.

  • I'm sure many of you have had similar experiences. So, I thought it would be interesting to ask.
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  1. I'm a programmer, so I must know how to get X done in Y software.

  2. I don't use or so I'm some kind of Luddite and can't possibly know anything useful about computers.

One thing that fascinates me about #1 is that the absolute raw dependency people have on Google doesn't seem to ever lead to searching for a tutorial.

I've lost all faith in tutorials as sources of relevant knowledge. If I'm searching about a specific problem, any from-the-top how-to might as well be Ben Stein reading it aloud at 50% speed, and then a year of my life later, it skips right over the place where something fucked up.