Coding vs patching: would you eat soup with a fork?

Dear list,
Would you give someone a fork to eat soup? Sorry about the cheap  
analogy, but it breaks my heart every time I think that 75% of the  
theoretical knowledge I have received in electronic music has been  
using Max/MSP. Most of the young and more inexperienced guys at school  
have a hard time grasping the concepts of electronic music. I am  
totally convinced that if they used SC they would learn much faster.  
Can anybody explain to my why the myth that coding is hard and that  
having a screen full of spaghetti makes it easier to program is still  
in vogue? I really don't get it. I mean, really. Actually I do, or I  
think I do. When the beginning electronic music student sees a Max  
patch, he only sees the end result, that is, a nice GUI, and thinks  
WOW, max looks neat. They never think that, under that nice looking  
main patch is hidden a maze of subpatches, until they start patching  
themselves. I am sure that, eventually along the line, every Max user  
gets the "god there are so many cables and windows open, maybe text  
would actually be better" - kind of feeling. I did, only it took me  
about a week.
I am quite known among my friends in the conservatory for my strong  
feelings about SC, and my increasing unease every time a teacher tries  
to shove Max down our throats, clogging the screen with nonsense to do  
something that would take 1 line in SC.
Some people might argue it is a matter of personal preference. Well,  
let me get intransigent: it is not. Ruby vs Python is a valid dilemma.  
Coding vs dragging is not. Just look around. Do you know any (non  
musical) programmers? What do they use? Little boxes and cables? Ask  
any of them whether they think it would be better to program in that  
way and you're likely to get a laugh. Of course many people have done  
great programming with Max. I once ate a soup with a fork too. Hey,  
even Miller Puckette said that Max was not thought out to program  
with, just to use as patcher for C modules.
I wanted to ask whether anyone knows of a text somewhere that exposes  
what I just said in more objective, less altered terms? If not, I  
would like to know the opinion of the forum. I promise to collect the  
strongest points, print them and post them all over town.

Sorry about the rant, but I cannot stand bad reasoning. I will have my  
pill now.

Cheers
Uri

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