The same reason other articles on HN in recent days/months/years have: People spend their efforts on sexting apps and Candy Crush ripoffs instead of tackling "real change".
It's hard, complex, and I don't really blame young talent for going after the big money... but it can look pretty frivolous at times.
Software changes things a lot. Efficiencies let people spend their time, money, and energy on bettering their lives in other ways.
Or it just offloads a function that we used to do without perceptible effort (remembering phone numbers, land navigation)
Or it does give us time, which we then spend on software's other products (social media, sexting apps, Candy Crush, etc..), which are compelling to our brain, but whose betterment of our lives is arguable. (Says hypocrite posting on HN)
The issue for a lot of folks is that there are a bunch of solvable, real world problems, that a traditional meatspace hacker might have tackled, but much like the financial industry, the easy money of software app. startup culture is perceived to be sucking the air out of other forms of hacking.
Because most people aren't coders, and tech is going through a wave of bad PR right now. You wouldn't go around touting a career as an exec at BP right after the big oil spill, either.
And I have no idea how you can read that article and think he's belittling coding. The first quote is about applying problem solving learned while coding to bigger problems on the national scale. If you read past the first sentence in your second quote, he's just naming other under-represented groups he hopes to cater towards. In education, he talks about teaching computer science at a younger age.
He gets asked about being the only developer in Congress if he were to win and the response is “Software developers aren’t the only ones under represented in congress." In other words being a developer is not important.
He describes being programmer since child hood then in the same sentance says “what I learned in college is that there were a lot opportunities to apply problem solving at a larger level." In other words there are more important thinks than programming.
So the Wired reporter is all about isn't it cool that your a developer running for Congress and all he wants to do is change the subject. Move along - nothing to see here.
I completely understand that being a nerd programmer is not the classic political profile and there may be a backlash against techies going on. What surprised me was in an article on tech-friendly Wired it was downplayed so much.
It's not unlike the "equality means I lose" mindset of the "men's rights" asshats.
An incredibly even handed statement about how it's not just software developers, but entire classes of workers who have no actual congressional voice, and the interest in trying to apply problem solving on a system level somehow reduces the importance of programmers?
“I’m running to tackle the issues that most affect families in South Jersey, like too few jobs, too high student debt, the need to act on climate change and the opportunity to make vital investments in education and infrastructure,” he says. “On those and many other issues, the leadership of the House of Representatives have obstructed any attempts at moving our country forward.”
And why does he repeatedly belittle coding?
“I’d been involved with computers since I was a little kid,” he says, “but what I learned in college is that there were a lot opportunities to apply problem solving at a larger level."
“Software developers aren’t the only ones under represented in congress."
You would think in an interview with Wired you could be a little less the generic politician. It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on healthcare.gov or, as he wants to represent Atlantic City, online gambling. Hopefully that would elicit responses other than cliches.