I think most of us have plenty of evidence to suggest that it is a lucrative profession. It's not very hard in the sense that no one is asking you to do anything besides at a desk and it does pay very well. I've always made more than my mom who is a CPA and I don't have a degree. I doubt there are many other careers I could have chosen where I could say the same thing.<p>I also don't know any programmers who are out of work even the ones who I'm pretty sure are bad. You can't say the same about many other professions especially right now.