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You are applying the term "solution space" in a manner I didn't intend. It's certainly true that an engineer isn't discovering new physics, just as most programmers are not discovering new complexity classes or doing fundamentally new CS. A good chunk of engineering consists of applying existing physical principles in new ways.

Of course, there are engineers building yet another overpass/HVAC/etc just as there are programmers building yet another CRUD app, or scientists sequencing the DNA of yet another bacteria. And now that I think about it, they may make up the majority.

In that case, most pf programming is not so special at all.



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