[mortenjorck]

It's a similar situation for designers, as you can see with some of the recent discussions regarding 99designs. There's good pay at the high end (with a somewhat pronounced falloff), lots of "artsy" kids go into college for it because it's the one art program that promises to actually make them a living, and there's certainly a lot of misunderstanding of the process at the management level.

[Periodic]

I was just wondering if we can extend this to any field. Is it true that every field will have its standouts and then a lot of mediocre members that dilute the image for everyone else?

I think the problem is that the barrier to entry is so low in a lot of technical fields right now because demand is high. Companies are willing to hire a lot of mediocre programmers (or outsource to places of questionable quality) because they simply need something and the cost of failure is not catastrophic.

On the other hand, medicine and law have high barriers to entry, and you would be considered a fool to hire a doctor or lawyer who did not have the appropriate degrees, certifications, and licenses. This is not true with technology these days.

It's like the programming industry doesn't even have a bar to jump over.