- This argument is only valid on a surface level. It is extremely valuable to have experience in any field not necessarily because the details of doing business don't change but because the overall conceptual challenges in doing the work require making mistakes and learning from this. This crops up in system architecture, class design, etc. on a day to day basis for programmers.
- Clearly the author has not paid attention to the startup community. There are plenty of small companies and a thriving community of other programmers. If this is a good argument, then the same could be said of nearly any other field but athlete and rockstar.
- Only time will tell if it is truly effective to outsource programming. I think things seem to be shifting away from this, especially in the wake of massive job losses in the U.S. (no company wants to be seen as the one outsourcing) - Project management is difficult but this is less important as products become easier to build and platforms and languages evolve to make things easier on developers.
- The minute he mentioned his job in an IT department I just didn't bother reading further. The author has clearly never worked in a startup or even modern programming environment (many people I know who work in larger companies get great perks and work in good office environments). His argument that developers don't have the equipment to do their jobs has been totally disproven by every company I've ever talked to. They all are most interested in providing their employees the best tools possible.
It sounds to me like the author has had particularly poor experiences and doesn't have a good grasp on the industry as a whole. However, the opposite might be said about me. I may have had good experiences that were out of the norm. Either way, programming is clearly becoming an important part of our economy and I think that fact lends to the belief that the quality of a job in the field will improve.
I have to say that his argument that accounting is a better profession made me laugh out loud. 3 of my friends who are recent graduates entering the accounting field work extremely long hours and are unhappy with their work (two work for big firms). One of them is thinking of going back to school and getting a computer science degree.