Nothing against the skill of mechanics here. Striped of hyperbole my point was that 'high tech' is another phrase that needs to be rescued. Recently the term has come to mean 'anything that uses custom code', and the distinction between technology and high technology has decayed. Of course mechanics are skilled; my point was that the bar for considering oneself to be on the cutting edge of technology has moved upwards and that the companies and programmers building routine Ruby on Rails web-applications and iPhone apps need to re-assess their place and adjust their egos accordingly.

Perhaps, but the analogy is not all bad. After all, there's a lot to know about making web or iPhone apps. You might pick up the basics fast enough, but if you don't know what you're doing it's liable to blow up down the road.

Are you saying there is not a big difference between a great mechanic (who fixes stuff that stays fixed) and the one to whom you are always bringing your car back to?

I think the HN crowd (as a whole) tends to underestimate what it takes to do just about any job aside from programming.