Warning: lots of terms in quotation marks here because there are no agreed-on definitions for those terms.

In we and mobile development, there is a lot of demand for developers and there are not enough "senior" developers to go around. That means there are opportunities for "junior" and "intermediate" developers to work on teams where they can gain experience and work their way up. It also explains why so many intensive developer training courses have popped up everywhere.

And why shoot for 7/10? That might be a place you live for a while, but with a little discipline and lots of practice, I feel many people have the ability to be great programmers. For most web development, having a great CS background isn't really all that useful.

Having other experience is often (almost always) useful, especially if you have knowledge of the domain you're working in.

It's never too late to start. I've had people well into their 50's come to the Rails Girls workshops I have organized.

I think Pandora is looking out for Pandora. That means that if Pandora has to pay performance royalties, everyone else should, too. And if no one has to pay, they'll be even more pleased. I think if someone uses an artist's music to make a profit, they should have to pay the artist.

And although I agree that the system's time has passed, I'm not sure what this "Music Industry" is that you speak of (in title case, no less), but there is a lot of ignorance out there. For the record, there is no unified music industry. There are at least two distinct parts--majors and independents, and possibly a third--independents with major distribution. (AFAIC major-owned "independents" are majors.)

Artists (and their labels) used to be happy with not making any money off of radio (and paying radio stations in some cases, e.g. the payola scandal) because of the promotional value of the medium--lots of radio play, lots of sales. But nowadays, sales returns for many artists have diminished to the point that this potential source of income has once again become attractive.

In Europe, any sort of public performances (radio, streaming, live) are subject to performance royalties paid to songwriters. (It gets a little bizarre when you get a payment from one of the royalty collection societies for your own performance of your songs (which the venue was charged for), but on the whole, the system works.) Independents have been hit the hardest by the changes in the market over the last five years (or so), but are the least likely to be registered with a royalty collection society in order to collect performance (and mechanical) royalties and so the money sits in the collection society's bank account, collecting interest until it is divided up among the members of the society according to the proportion of the market share each member represents. So even if a similar system is adopted in the US, there is no guarantee that independent artists (i.e. the ones *I* care about) will get their money unless the collection system is also fair.

What is even more worrisome is the opinion expressed by at least one deputy during the debate that of course it is acceptable to remove someone's internet access because having access to the internet isn't even close to being a basic right. This comes shortly after the European Parliament stated that internet access is a basic right, like the right to education.

Witty comments about the accuracy of Wikipedia aside, the internet is becoming the norm for getting information about the world, such as seeing what your elected representatives have been getting up to while you were asleep.