Why are "things" and "build" mutually exclusive from software (addressing other comments here, not the article)? I think physical vs information is a bit arbir

Why are "things" and "build" mutually exclusive from software (addressing other comments here, not the article)? I think physical vs information is a bit arbirary (and often overlapping in true contexts of projects). I think that the article's main point is learning by doing vs learning by instruction - and it applies to software as well as physical things. I tend to agree pretty strongly that this is a better - and more fun - way to learn. I was on the solar car team in college. Most of the people on the team were engineering students, but without a doubt the most valuable guy was doing a graduate program in ligustics. He had no formal engineering or design training, but was very hands-on and could design and build pretty much anything. He still stands as the best "hacker" of mechanical arts I know. In contrast, most of the engineering students (myself included) were pretty useless at design until we took a more hands-on approach to it. On a flip to this, I'm doing a PhD now in biomaterials engineering. Even the "exparimentalists" (myself included) in the group usually spend more time using and writing software than in the lab.