> Why is it okay (or would it be okay, since this conversation would never actually take place) for an ambitious lawyer to say, “I just want to be a lawyer” and

> Why is it okay (or would it be okay, since this conversation would never actually take place) for an ambitious lawyer to say, “I just want to be a lawyer” and not for an ambitious programmer to say, “I just want to be a programmer?” I don't know, but I would guess that it's because practicing law has, what, centuries of history? And its practitioners somehow managed to figure out that, hey, our careers doing this thing should look a certain way. Not to mention the barriers to entry put in place. But us programmers, we just try to write each other out of a job.