Can a manual tester write automation scripts?

A few days ago, I posted Kheera on the Cukes mailing list. The framework's utility was called into question in a remarkably civil discussion (for the internet.)

The basic thrust of the argument was that the framework lets implementation specific details bleed into the feature file and that is a hallmark of a poorly designed framework. Cucumber was built to be as high level and abstract as possible and this framework detracts from that vision.

To me, a major selling point of Kheera is that manual testers can contribute to the automation effort using it. In response, Eric Kessler wrote this:

The 'ease' of converting a manual tester is an illusion. Converting a non-programmer to a programmer takes either time for them to learn on their own, money to train them, or money to simply hire someone who is already a programmer. If you don't take one of those three routes then you have not converted anyone to anything. The tests may be faster for being automated, but they are just as likely to still be slower, more fragile, and harder to understand than a 'properly' built test suite and that is the kind of thing that leads companies to wondering why 'automation' didn't work of them.

This made me wonder: Can a manual tester write automation scripts?

I feel that given a template to follow, anyone can make a meaningful contribution to automation.

Just like a nurse or a dental hygienist may not be an MD but they can make the lives of doctors easier by taking care of the low level stuff, a manual tester who can automate basic unit tests can make the entire automation effort run faster.

It is the responsibility of people manufacturing medical equipment to make it easy for nurses to use them. This is also true for automation framework designers. Can we bring automation to the masses? Kheera tries to do that. It subverts the original intent behind Cucumber. A purist would balk at the liberties I took with it. In other contexts, I might have found myself on the other side of the debate - pushing for a purist's hardline against an godless hippie rule breaker.

All I know is that this framework seems to let manual testers work in automation. It's still early days so the jury is still out on whether companies are going to ask why automation done using kheera didn't work for them.