[lmartel]

Well the thing about art, music, and writing is that, at least until you make it big (which most people never do) you're doing it only on your own time, since no one's paying you.

Software's in this weird spot where it has some qualities of art (creative, inspires "passion", we expect people to do it without getting paid) and some qualities of a craft (it pays)

[iyulaev]

School doesn't pay for itself (quite the opposite, really). Learning on your own time certainly doesn't pay for itself. You're right in that a larger proportion of programmers "make it big" but I don't believe there's a fundamental difference.