Teachers / doctors / dentists all need to take courses to keep their skills up to date. Programming is no different. I don't think there is one profession where you aren't required to keep your skills up to date / put in extra time.
As I've mentioned before, in a lot of professions it is paid and considered part of the job. If not, then at least it's regulated. We enjoy none of those benefits.
Software is a career requiring a much higher level of personal commitment than many other careers, while often not necessarily being better compensated.
In which professions is it paid? Teachers / dentists I know have had to pay for their own education.
Isn't the level of personal commitment subjective though? What would your solution be?
I think it's hard for programming because there's such a diverse array of programmers (university educated based on data structures / algorithms vs self-taught that might not know those things). My recent interviews with Amazon tested my core CS knowledge but nothing like frameworks or anything. I suspect those things would matter more at startups / web shops (where I used to work).
Software is a career requiring a much higher level of personal commitment
Except it really doesn't. Most of us chose to put in the personal commitment because we love it and then convince ourselves it's because we have to.
I know several people who code 9-5 Monday to Friday on whatever their boss tells them to code on and that is it. Sure non of them will ever be offered a top job at Google, Facebook or awesome SV startup of the week, and sure most of what they do sounds frightfully dull, but they still have a successful if unassuming career in software.
