I agree with many of the things written in the original post. But I definitely disagree with the notion that the barrier to entry in this profession is low and

I agree with many of the things written in the original post. But I definitely disagree with the notion that the barrier to entry in this profession is low and that any Joe Sixpack can start programming for a living because it's supposedly easy. I can vividly remember my days in back in college where a lot of fellow students in my CS classes had substantial problems writing even the simplest of programs and understanding basic statements and data structures. A lot of them couldn't even write simple programs which would take user input, do something with it and give some output, let alone come up with more complicated solutions and architectures for real world problems. This field is not for everyone and I believe that is often not obvious to many of us because we take our ability to turn mental constructs into code for granted. A lot of people just don't have the mental facilities to do it. I'm not saying this to sound elitist, but it's the way it is.