I guess this is why it's "the worst career". In other "professional" careers, salaries generally keep pace, or even far outpace inflation, and one's standing (

I guess this is why it's "the worst career". In other "professional" careers, salaries generally keep pace, or even far outpace inflation, and one's standing (and salary) within the profession generally improves with experience. With programming, it seems as though salaries are set to decline, and skill experience is constantly eroded as new technologies (and cheap pools of labour) become available, and then there's rampant ageism. It's somewhat like being an athlete perhaps - if you haven't made it big when you're young, you're looking at declining prospects, which is stressful and depressing.