I wonder what the impact of making software development a profession would be, when you can easily teach yourself the mechanics of development with just a laptop from anywhere in the world.

If there was a restriction that said Californian companies can only hire guilded developers, that might form an effective protest in this case in particular; but in general, I have a hard time imagining software development being contained in a bureaucratic box. Seems like it would add needless/expensive/frustrating bureaucracy without much obvious benefit.