Computer programming & writing fiction: Art as a recruiting poster

How is computer programming like writing fiction? Is writing code anything like writing stories?

When I was young, perhaps seven or eight, I banged out my first short story on a second-hand IBM Selectric typewriter my mother brought home from her office. Powered on, the Selectric vibrated the whole desk and emanated a low mechanical hum, some unseen engine in the contraption idling. I still recall the tang of the ink in the typewriter ribbon and the satisfying, officious schock as the typebal...