If you were to log in, you'd be able to get more information on your fellow community member.
Just to comment on the previous comment: I think you missed the intended point. I don't think Phil meant to imply that programming is not hard work - - Quite the opposite, really. It's such an arduous task that relatively few people choose it when there are other, higher-profile and higher- prestige alternatives available.What he's pointing out is that C programming may require brains, but it certainly doesn't require any formal education. There are plenty of fifteen- year-old high-school students who can outcode the average Comp Sci Ph.D. This means that when someone spends seven years getting a degree, working 80 hours a week for a poverty-level stipend, and then becomes a C programmer, someone is wasting their time.
I'm now a fifth year grad student, and many of my Ph.D. student friends have become programmers, doing Web sites or databases and starting out at nearly the same salary level as a new B.S. in computer science -- but five to eig...