> Programming is simply a tool, a way to abstract a problem and enable it to be solved or solved more efficiently. […] The programming part is nothing more than a hammer to a builder or a scalpel to a surgeon.

That sounds like a massive understatement of the actual power of electronic computers. They are the universal mental tool. The tool that can do any sufficiently specified cognitive task. There is no such physical tool yet (though we could hope for Drexlerian nanotechnology).

Programming is the way we control this tool. I do not know of any greater power.