What I got out of Hackers and Painters is that the two activities are similar in procedure: most basically you begin with an idea, you, you make an initial sket

What I got out of Hackers and Painters is that the two activities are similar in procedure: most basically you begin with an idea, you, you make an initial sketching, then you iterate with periods of refactoring until it's done. That's a procedure that seems true of ANY creative process, and the essay argues hacking is more of a creative process than whatever else a person might think it is. This is especially true when working with certain languages where you're encouraged to constantly rework designs. Dabblers and Blowhards kind of missed this point, but the overall criticism stands: an individuals subjective experience of an activity isn't necessarily shared by everyone.