The real question is: What problem are you trying to solve? i.e. what do you hope to achieve by explaining programming to non-programmers? When people ask me a

The real question is: What problem are you trying to solve? i.e. what do you hope to achieve by explaining programming to non-programmers? When people ask me about my scientific work, or my thesis, my goal is typically to make them feel validated and my work seem interesting, rather than going into excruciating detail and making them feel dumb and my work arcane. So I explain the topic at a high-level. I then say that I examine particular aspects of the topic, but that these aspects are only interesting if you understand the context and the other things people are working on. They usually are content with that, and rarely want a summary of the literature.