I think that's part of the point. I intend no offense towards @ebd2 on GitHub, but ebd2 can be said to be a "noname" developer turned wood worker. I'm guessing

I think that's part of the point. I intend no offense towards @ebd2 on GitHub, but ebd2 can be said to be a "noname" developer turned wood worker. I'm guessing the reason why ebd2's story struck a chord with the HN community is that he has figured out a way to manage to do what a lot of people here aspire to be able to do with their time some day. The working assumption (which he has graciously corrected upthread as @mauvehaus on HN) is that his software career has afforded him to switch careers to something he is far more passionate about, a trait shared by many engineers who are forced to collect paychecks from work that is considered not very meaningful or fulfilling. The trades, specifically stuff like woodworking, metalworking, farming etc involve a certain kind of craftsmanship that can be applied on real world objects but which was honed by years of coding on imaginary software objects. It's a visceral thing to be transfer the skill of using your hands to build virtual stuff to build physical stuff.