Hmm. I feel misunderstood. Let me try to cut across what we're both talking about and see if we end up at the same place:
Brick walls have a very high level of observability. A non-bricklayer can look at a wall and tell if it fills the space it is supposed to fill, if the wall is obviously crooked or warped, if bricks are missing, and if mortar is missing between bricks. They can do all of this with very little expertise because they can physically inspect the wall and they have also seen many walls before and have internalized some norms for walls.
Compare this with a non-programmer's experience with software. All they see is the user interface, which is usually a very small part of the whole. Software has a very low level of observability.
Brick walls - typically - are also very simple systems when compared to software such as what is described in the original article. Lower complexity combined with a high level of visibility and broadly shared expectations means that lay people can make many more accurate judgements about a wall, the progress of a wall, the quality of work being done on a wall, etc. without being experts on wall building or brick laying.
This is not to take away from expert tradespeople or diminish their value. It's just a completely different situation which I believe was the intent of the original analogy.
Brick walls have a very high level of observability. A non-bricklayer can look at a wall and tell if it fills the space it is supposed to fill, if the wall is obviously crooked or warped, if bricks are missing, and if mortar is missing between bricks. They can do all of this with very little expertise because they can physically inspect the wall and they have also seen many walls before and have internalized some norms for walls.
Compare this with a non-programmer's experience with software. All they see is the user interface, which is usually a very small part of the whole. Software has a very low level of observability.
Brick walls - typically - are also very simple systems when compared to software such as what is described in the original article. Lower complexity combined with a high level of visibility and broadly shared expectations means that lay people can make many more accurate judgements about a wall, the progress of a wall, the quality of work being done on a wall, etc. without being experts on wall building or brick laying.
This is not to take away from expert tradespeople or diminish their value. It's just a completely different situation which I believe was the intent of the original analogy.