[geebee]

My guess is that being a nurse is a fairly tough job. Nurses are well respected and (at least in SF) paid well, as they should be.

I can see reasons why people would want to be nurses or dental hygienists rather than developers, and vice-versa. if you consider pay, training, the possibility of age-related discrimination, career stability, the ability to scale back for a while while you have kids without compromising your ability to get back into the field later… all in all, I think that the decision to avoid software development in favor of other career paths is a very rational one.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's necessarily irrational to go into software development, at all. It can be the right choice for some people. I just don't think the case for software development as a career compared to other options available[1] to high talent, academically inclined people is anywhere near compelling enough to be talking about a "shortage" of software developers.

[1] the right to live and work in the US at the time you are making your career decisions is a major factor in what options you have available, of course.