Re: Respect
Have you seen the overgrown lego blocks that pass for modern architecture? The stuff produced before the modern "architect" appeared is what is bought at a premium and visited for holidays in attractive surroundings.
A lot of software is the same. People think that the kind of intellect that likes analysing hardware or configuring a card is the same as that needed to think abstractly, understand the requirements and environment of end users and maintainers and think openly, logically and unrestrainedly. For that, in my experience, informatics and numeracy graduates seem to be peculiarly unsuited. Anthropologists, classics graduates, biologists, quantum chemists and those with a broad experience outside computing seem to be very well suited. Strangely, real hardware engineers (old school) are also rather good in some fields. Trained software engineers have clever solutions to the problem that is not the one to hand.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
