bitbuilder

There are two things that guarantee at least a nominal level of competency in those fields:

1) For junior positions, both have professional accreditation, with standardized testing that ensures a basic level of competency. Not to mention the mandatory schooling (in most cases).

2) If you screw up as a doctor or lawyer, you can end up with official sanctions on the public record. If you screw up too bad, you lose your ability to continue to do your job.

I've worked with plenty of dead weight developers who wouldn't pass even these nominal competency tests.

Further, it just seems to me it's easier to benchmark your successes as a doctor or lawyer. At least in a way that has meaning to your potential employer.

I think part of that has to do with the fact we pretty much all work on teams. The actual projects themselves might be somewhat verifiable, but figuring out that developer's actual contribution is a pure crapshoot.

I list of successes for a doctor or lawyer are going to be both more individual, and also verifiable (i.e., less likely to be bullshit).

You're absolutely right. Most people who called themselves a "Computer Programmer" 20 years ago are now calling themselves a "Software Developer" or "Web Developer", at least if we're going to use the Bureau of Labor Statistics categories. Both of those categories are forecasting double digit growth over the next decade (17% and 27%, respectively).

While I have no experience with an organization that is officially flat, I have plenty of experience with large dev teams with indifferent managers that effectively created a flat organization.

In my experience, it's rare that the most "commanding" dev is also one of the more talented devs. If anything, my experience is the opposite: the stronger personalities are great examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect, while the best devs have more passive personalities (or just don't care enough to try to commandeer leadership of the team).

It's not like "kissing the most ass" is limited to kissing the ass of upper management. The same types that are exceptional at kissing the ass of management can also be great at playing Lord of the Flies with development teams (forming alliances, turning devs against eachother). It makes for a terrible work environment.

I much prefer strong hierarchical management, assuming management is competent enough to promote those with both development expertise and the people skills necessary for management (consensus building, mentorship, clarity of purpose, motivating people, etc).

Seeing family/friend photos (as well as sharing mine with family) is one of the few reasons I keep Facebook around. I've found it's not tough to get things setup to minimize the annoyances:

1) If someone is consistently filling your feed with crap, just unfollow them. It's as easy as clicking an arrow on their post.

2) Go to the profiles of people you want to keep tabs on (family, close friends, etc), click on the "Friends" button up top, and select "Get Notifications". Now you can pretty much ignore your news feed, and only pay attention to Facebook when you receive a notification.

3) I just discovered this and haven't tried it: click the "Following" button (next to the above mentioned "Friends" button) and select "See First". I assume this prioritizes their posts in your news feed. Neat.

Doesn't your Paris Hilton example prove GPs point, rather than refute it? It's precisely due to her family's considerable wealth that she was able to make more than she'll inherit. Would Julia Louis-Dreyfus have been able to pursue an acting career so easily without family wealth? But I'm not sure it's even useful to consider celebrities when discussing wealth acquisition in our country. I'd consider them outliers, in the grand scheme of things.