I think he doesn't necessarily imply anything about being high or low in the chain. But about beauty and understanding. SICP is one example, but I bet it's eve

I think he doesn't necessarily imply anything about being high or low in the chain. But about beauty and understanding. SICP is one example, but I bet it's even possible to be happy coding GUIs or any other rather mundane things if one does it with an elegant toolset. For example, Oz comes to mind. Some modern tools are not pleasing to use, often because architectures are a mess. Things move forward too quickly.