It's hard to see how being an RN isn't a better job than being a software developer in SF...
I can see reasons why people would want to be nurses or dental hygienists rather than developers, and vice-versa. if you consider pay, training, the possibility of age-related discrimination, career stability, the ability to scale back for a while while you have kids without compromising your ability to get back into the field later… all in all, I think that the decision to avoid software development in favor of other career paths is a very rational one.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's necessarily irrational to go into software development, at all. It can be the right choice for some people. I just don't think the case for software development as a career compared to other options available[1] to high talent, academically inclined people is anywhere near compelling enough to be talking about a "shortage" of software developers.
[1] the right to live and work in the US at the time you are making your career decisions is a major factor in what options you have available, of course.
http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-b...
In San Francisco, the median salary of a software developer working in San Francisco is $114,400. ("average" here is median according to BLS data). It's considerably higher in San Jose apparently, at $131,270k a year.
By contrast, the median salary for a dental hygienist in San Francisco is $112,970 a year.
http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/dental-hygienist/s...
For registered nurses in SF, it's $127,670
I'm glad that dental hygienists and registered nurses are paid well, but why would programmers, supposedly in such desperately short supply that the US president needs to do press appearances with tech CEOs to help recruit more people into the field, need to pinch themselves for earning roughly the same salary as a dental hygienist?
On the bright side, if that dental hygienist and software developer get married and have kids, and the programmer manages not to be a casualty of age discrimination, they can probably afford a house as long as they both continue to work full time. They will need to deal with the roughly $20,000K+ costs of child care, though, if they take this route.