I see a lot of people complaining "we don't have enough programmers", while not adjusting themselves to account for the lack of supply they freely admit exists.

I see a lot of people complaining "we don't have enough programmers", while not adjusting themselves to account for the lack of supply they freely admit exists. They've tried exploiting people in places with worse economies, but anyone who's worked with this model knows, it doesn't produce quality products. The overhead, and the fact that almost everyone who's any good just winds up another savvy, expensive programmer make it a losing game for software of any reasonable complexity. I know plenty of developers who would be happy to take one the jobs people complain about going unfilled(both in teaching or just elsewhere in CS) if _only_ someone was willing to pay and treat them like adult human beings. Good programmers hate to be managed and know what they are worth, there's no getting around that. I agree that there is a shortage of good programmers, "good help is hard to find" is not a new phrase. The obvious solution if you want or need one is to open your wallet and tone down your bullshit. You can woo the young ones with beer in the fridge and other nonsense, but at the end of the day, people with experience want to be paid and respected. I've been freelancing/looking for work for a while now and working at consulting companies for quite some time before that. I consistently see the same problems. - People want software (and therefore programmers) they can't afford. - People refuse to believe experts tell them things they don't want to hear. - Almost no one in management has read the mythical man month. - People consistently prioritize cost over quality and wind up with neither. - Gullible, superstitious morons gobble up any shortcut offered to avoid paying people properly or treating others like human beings.