Programming is about architecting superior solutions to problems.
How then is it purely symbol manipulation? There is an intelligence required to imbue them with semantics and combine them into the right order to match the semantics of a correct solution.
Loops, variables, constants, etc. These are building blocks. One doesn't have to find them inherently interesting. The real challenge of programming comes from imbuing them with the right semantics.
The same can be said for mathematics. Sigma notation isn't interesting. It's what you use it to represent that is interesting.
Apparently I fail at irony :-) Since we are mostly programmers here, I meant people to read the second sentence, say, "Wait... what? That doesn't do it justice," and then reread the first sentence in light of their understanding of the difference between what computers do and what programmers do. Symbol manipulation is what we design our computers to do, and the power of mathematical systems can be described by mathematical logic, which reduces mathematics to symbol manipulation, but what goes on in our heads as we work with these systems is very different.
How then is it purely symbol manipulation? There is an intelligence required to imbue them with semantics and combine them into the right order to match the semantics of a correct solution.
Loops, variables, constants, etc. These are building blocks. One doesn't have to find them inherently interesting. The real challenge of programming comes from imbuing them with the right semantics.
The same can be said for mathematics. Sigma notation isn't interesting. It's what you use it to represent that is interesting.