I can only directly compare myself to the people I know. I know a couple lawyers, one judge, and several doctors, all who are alumni of the same school as I.
I'm more highly trained, and engage in more ongoing training than any of them. All of these professions involve ongoing training, though for lawyers and judges, once they get their degree the need drops dramatically. In fact, speaking of these people I know myself, they all have practices that are pretty routine with each case being very much like the others.
In my experience, as a software developer, I am constantly having to learn new areas of expertise. For instance, NoSQL has become relevant in recent years, and on previous jobs I had to learn the intricacies of fairly arcane businesses. My lawyer and doctor friends don't do this level of continuing education.
Also, you seem to be debating a point I'm not making. I never said it wasn't risky or expensive to go into those careers, in fact, that is part of the point I made: In both cases there are gateway organizations and laws that exclude people from the practice, preventing competition in salaries.
Well I obviously can't say much about your situation, since I don't know you. Maybe you do have several degrees and you are more trained than any of them. But let's do the math - your lawyer and judge friends have done a 4-year degree and a 3-year JD at the very least. Let's say you've got a regular 4-year CS degree. That means they trained for 3x1800 (let's be conservative) more hours than you did; that means that you would have to have spend 270 hours per year (almost 34 days, or more than 6 full time weeks) each year, for 10 years, before you'd even have had caught up with them. That's not counting any potential in-company skills training, and the mandatory MCLE training required just to maintain your bar license that laywers go through.
Of course, I too have read numerous books about various topics in programming, and I've played for 1000's of hours with languages, tools, etc. I could count that as 'training' and say that I'm more highly trained or do more ongoing training. But frankly, the time I spend on that is not 'training', because it's way too inefficient compared with 'real' training. Most programmers that I know who are programmers-by-passion and not programmers-by-occupation are like that. Again, maybe you're different, and I'm sure that there are many people out there much more disciplined and talented who have had more training than the average programmer. But saying, in the aggregate, that programmers have much more training and do more ongoing education than other professionals, doesn't pass the smell test. I'm not even saying that they have less (although I suspect they do...), but certainly not more.
Anyway, I do agree with your last point that the amount that people are paid is not directly related to the amount of work they put into getting to where they are; and that organizations like the AMA and the ABA are relics from the era of guilds and drive compensation for their members up; and need to be abolished. Unfortunately the trend seems to be the other way - more gateway organizations under the guise of 'ascertaining professional quality' and 'protecting consumers from incompetent practitioners' - but that's a different discussion.
I'm more highly trained, and engage in more ongoing training than any of them. All of these professions involve ongoing training, though for lawyers and judges, once they get their degree the need drops dramatically. In fact, speaking of these people I know myself, they all have practices that are pretty routine with each case being very much like the others.
In my experience, as a software developer, I am constantly having to learn new areas of expertise. For instance, NoSQL has become relevant in recent years, and on previous jobs I had to learn the intricacies of fairly arcane businesses. My lawyer and doctor friends don't do this level of continuing education.
Also, you seem to be debating a point I'm not making. I never said it wasn't risky or expensive to go into those careers, in fact, that is part of the point I made: In both cases there are gateway organizations and laws that exclude people from the practice, preventing competition in salaries.