What I'm not clear on is what the effect of opening the doors to programmers will be.
There would be many effects which would interact with each other. But one thing that is sadly true right now is that for an engineering manager to increase his/her hiring budget there is unlikely to be a significant quality increase. Think about what this means.
If there were more talent, then companies would be able to justify increasing budgets to build/grow a superior team. In this market if you double your budget you just get twice as many mediocre programmers or you end up getting into a bidding war for highly priced talent. Neither is good for the field as a whole.
There would be many effects which would interact with each other. But one thing that is sadly true right now is that for an engineering manager to increase his/her hiring budget there is unlikely to be a significant quality increase. Think about what this means.
If there were more talent, then companies would be able to justify increasing budgets to build/grow a superior team. In this market if you double your budget you just get twice as many mediocre programmers or you end up getting into a bidding war for highly priced talent. Neither is good for the field as a whole.