I too switched from biochem to CS: it was such a relief to work in a field where I felt that, as in math, you can get by remembering axioms and rules and derive the rest, without all the arcana of biology. (My mentor in biology bought me a copy of Barrow & Tipler as a parting gift, as if to say, CS and biology are not so different.) Today I’m not sure I still feel that way. Programming is more an empirical than logical discipline that ever before, as programs are too complex to be objects of pure reason; and the layers of stuff one needs to know keep growing in both directions, from SIMD to OAuth.

I’m so glad to come across this writer though. I was going to send them a note to tell them they have a real talent, until I noticed the long list of New Yorker and Atlantic publications, and thought: they already know. :)