In my view, it comes down to two things. First is that while programming seems easy to those of us who can do it, it's actually prohibitively hard for most peop

In my view, it comes down to two things. First is that while programming seems easy to those of us who can do it, it's actually prohibitively hard for most people to learn -- for reasons that we don't understand. Thus, demand can't be satisfied by "just" training more people. Software can market itself through its aesthetic and cultural appeal, thus attracting disproportionate interest from managers and investors. A new project can produce a beautiful demo with no underlying functionality. I'm not sure there's a clear rational relationship between the cost of software development and the value it produces. I've read The Mythical Man Month. One problem with traditional engineering is that we don't have the tools to make ourselves maximally efficient, such as JIRA and Scrum. The reality of getting things physically made and tested adds some slack to our work flow. Personally I prefer that, coming from the "hardware" side. My friends who are programmers at my age work a lot harder than I do, and many are burnt out. I have the luxury of using programming as a tool without anybody managing how I do it.