> There are easily many more programmers who work on potentially life-or-death systems than there are lawyers who litigate death-penalty cases in court.
But potentially life-or-death cases are not limited to death penalty cases, they are just the most obvious class of cases that are life-or-death.
There are far greater numbers (and proportion) of lawyers who work on potentially life-and-death work -- not limited to death penalty cases -- than programmers who do so.
Well, the OP said "sentenced to death" specifically, which is why I mentioned the death penalty. But ok. Either way I still don't think I agree, though frankly I'm just going off gut feeling and don't have any numbers. But think about how much medical device software is out there, plus industrial control equipment, airplanes and other vehicles, military stuff, etc. I know on HN the image of "programmer" is "person taking VC money to write a photo sharing app" but there's a lot of other work out there.
Though for what it's worth this is less a "programmers are awesome and important!" argument than it is a "don't get your view of lawyers from television shows" argument -- if the OP had gone with doctors or something I wouldn't have said anything.
