[dragonwriter]

> median salaries for developers in San Francisco ($114,400), ostensibly ground zero for the "shortage", are only a whisker higher than they are for dental hygienists ($112,970) and are considerably lower than for registered nurses ($127,670).

What are you trying to prove? Nurses are a frequently-identified national shortage. So, unless you are trying to, by comparison, establish that there is also a shortage in dental hygienists (which I have no problem believing), I'm not sure what you are trying to establish.

[geebee]

The NPR report notes that while women continued to enter medicine and law in large numbers, enrollment in computer science abruptly declined, then seeks to explain this through a heavy emphasis on cultural factors. I believe that we should be placing greater consideration on economic factors, and consider that entering computer science may not be economically rational when you consider the other options women now have (though I also do agree that cultural factors play a substantial role as well). I argue out that even nursing and dental hygiene may have better, more predictable economic outcomes than computer science.

[greenyoda]

Another advantage that dental hygienists and nurses have in terms of employment stability is that their jobs can't be shipped out of the country, unlike those of software developers.