My main hobby is learning foreign languages and I have noticed that a very large proportion of people on language-learning sites happen to be programmers of one sort or another. Of course, this may just reflect a tendency of programmers to be aware of and use the technology available to pursue their other interests, and thus be overrepresented on such sites, rather than an affinity between interest and ability in computer languages and natural ones...not to mention the fact that programmers coming from a non-English background have a very strong incentive to improve at least their English.
The manual for the Wechsler Applied Intelligence Scale (WAIS) circa 1970 had intelligence score histograms for many professions. Already then programmers were quite outside the average-average.
Also: a mason and a blacksmith, both traditional crafts I admire, learn their tools once; programming is an activity where you have to continually change and relearn tools. This selects for people with an affinity with novelty. You'll probably see more programmers than the base rate when, say, a Nepalese restaurant opens in town.
I think programmers are still from a set of generation cohorts where being into computers from a young age was still a "thing", something that wasn't the default. I'm in my early 30s, and I had the first PC of anyone I knew in an upper middle-class residential compound of five thousand. Nowadays, it's more or less the default that everyone will grow up with computers (tablet computers y compris).
Of course, my first PC booted into BASICA. But still, it's hard to know what programmers born in the 90s, entering the workforce... right now... have as formative computer experiences -- and what the first tablet generation of programmers will think like.
On the other hand my interest for languages/etymology is an extension of the pursuit of expressiveness in programming. So seeing how humans categorized and related syntax with semantics is valuable to me even if I never cared using learning technology (unless you count etymonline, wikipedia and such as learning tech)
Small dogs live longer than big dogs. It's the same in all mammals. Within a species the smaller individuals tend to have a higher metabolic rate, weight adjusted, and live longer.
