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> more that programming in the USA and Europe has become a blue collar job, as it has been in Japan for decades

I wouldn't use Japan as your data point to champion programming as accessible to the common man. One only needs to suffer through a few domestic websites to know that talent is sorely missing.

Pay peanuts, get monkeys, etc.

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I live in Japan and have friends and family members who work in large companies as programmers. None of them started out to be programmers. None of them particularly wanted to be programmers. One of them was the secretary. One day her boss dropped a whole bunch of books on her desk, "You're the new programmer". Rationale? She could type.

Which is not to say that there aren't great programmers here. There are. But the average view of a programmer at large companies (not high tech), is that it is a pretty junior position.

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