> Did we try to teach everyone how internal combustion engines or transistors work when they came up? As you note, software influences our lives in a much deep

> Did we try to teach everyone how internal combustion engines or transistors work when they came up? As you note, software influences our lives in a much deeper way than internal combustion engines and transistors, and this will only become more and more true as time passes, so I think this may be useful. I don't expect most students to become programmers; I hope they'll grasp some software concepts, the most important being (IMO) that software isn't magic, and has limitations and costs. People could get away with thinking that internal combustion engines and transistors were magic with far less consequences than thinking that software is magic. Btw, they did teach me how an internal combustion engine and a transistor work, at school—not to a professional level, but enough to understand the basics.