Building software is not like installing carpet. You don't just do it for a couple years and become a skilled worker. Its obvious that many misinformed people think that software development is a blue collar job that people go to vo-tech school to learn to do while rebuilding car alternators. This way of thinking comes about because most people's experience with development is usually within a very, very small microcosm. There are people out there that did some VB work fifteen years ago who think that once a developer has ramped up on basic VB programming, they now meet the industry bar for software design and engineering.
Is a physicist just as valuable after a few years of doing research as a full tenured professor with 30 years of research? After a few years of full-time professional development work John will be talented at working with a very, very limited set of tools that his company uses and developed the ability to solve a very small set of problems. This means he is perhaps as valuable as Norman to one single company and almost not valuable at all to most other companies.
> Building software is not like installing carpet. You don't just do it for a couple years and become a skilled worker.
I think you're wrong, there. Building software is, 99% of the time, like installing carpet.
> Is a physicist just as valuable after a few years of doing research as a full tenured professor with 30 years of research?
Terrible analogy. There are grad students who are more valuable than professors on the edge of the retirement. Comparing software development to academia is a specious argument.
Is a physicist just as valuable after a few years of doing research as a full tenured professor with 30 years of research? After a few years of full-time professional development work John will be talented at working with a very, very limited set of tools that his company uses and developed the ability to solve a very small set of problems. This means he is perhaps as valuable as Norman to one single company and almost not valuable at all to most other companies.