One huge difference is that the practice of law is still controlled by a professional association that many people feel behaves like a cartel. Anyone is free to read an online python book, install mysql, and hang out a shingle as a web programmer. In my opinion, that's a really good thing.
There's a lot of disagreement around "scope" - some people are actually opposed to almost any restriction of practice, even in areas like medicine and law. Other people want to see similar associations/cartels (depending on your point of view) set up for software development. There's also a big middle ground, people who do see a justification for credentialing and licensing in some cases, but who think that the scope of what requires a license has expanded far beyond what was reasonable and needed to protect the public. I tend to fall in the middle group, but with a high degree of suspicion of cartels.
There's also some funny business on the demand side for law. America's truly byzantine tax code, for instance, provides lots of employment for $500/hr lawyers. Imagine if programmers could mandate that all code had to be written in the most bloated enterprise java possible, and had to be written by people with three year graduate degrees from programs largely inaccessible to international students. This would include many tasks that could otherwise have been handled by smart people with no degree who read the book. Anyone who didn't comply could be prevented by legal force from practicing, or even sent to prison. Now you'd have something comparable to the legal profession.
There's a lot of disagreement around "scope" - some people are actually opposed to almost any restriction of practice, even in areas like medicine and law. Other people want to see similar associations/cartels (depending on your point of view) set up for software development. There's also a big middle ground, people who do see a justification for credentialing and licensing in some cases, but who think that the scope of what requires a license has expanded far beyond what was reasonable and needed to protect the public. I tend to fall in the middle group, but with a high degree of suspicion of cartels.
There's also some funny business on the demand side for law. America's truly byzantine tax code, for instance, provides lots of employment for $500/hr lawyers. Imagine if programmers could mandate that all code had to be written in the most bloated enterprise java possible, and had to be written by people with three year graduate degrees from programs largely inaccessible to international students. This would include many tasks that could otherwise have been handled by smart people with no degree who read the book. Anyone who didn't comply could be prevented by legal force from practicing, or even sent to prison. Now you'd have something comparable to the legal profession.