I think part of it is that at some point what you’re working on is considered “done”, which is rarely the case with software.

Ah !

    - working outside
    - wood is a joy to work with: touch feels good, looks good, smells good too
    - you get to build cool things that are actually useful like sheds, car ports, house extensions, bridges, even simple furniture
    - when it's done, it's done
    - it's both intellectual and physical work, it's good for your body and your mind
    - learn new things

Some similarities; with a small amount of math, planning, and investment in understanding tools, you can quickly achieve things that the non-practitioners think are cool and useful. Plus the tactile experience provides a nice antidote to the endlessly ephemeral working experience of gazing on the computer screen.

If your mental embedding for "carpentry" is very similar to your embedding for "woodworking", this [0] HN post provides many excellent reasons.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31687378

No one is on-call in woodworking.

Making things is fun, usually regardless of the medium

Working with physical materials is a nice change after organizing bits all day.

Depends on what they have been doing, maybe they want to build things that are more likely to stand the test of time?

Saw. Bang, bang. Scraaaape, smooth slivers of wood. Mmm, smell. No think. Quiet. Peace.