One of the advantages that doctors and lawyers have over us is that their field is no longer nascent. Their professions have existed in some form or another si

One of the advantages that doctors and lawyers have over us is that their field is no longer nascent. Their professions have existed in some form or another since ancient Greece, and were cornerstones of western society. We programmers have existed barely half a century, so we (rightly or wrongly) don't have that same sort of social gravitas. We also don't necessarily (some of us do) go through specialized graduate education systems to be a part of the field. I guess I say all that to say is that people trust lawyers and doctors to be professionals. If they say that they need something, such as time to self-improve -- or the right tools, people listen. The respect their profession bestows upon them gives them an amount of personal clout that most of us don't get by virtue of simply being a dev.