Fhe firm I work for uses computer science for the analysis and development of a greater objective, not so much on the forefront of developing the next consumer operating system or product. Thus the 2010 C++ and Java IDEs work just fine. Also, the next build of VS is 2012, just released. Unless I am creating Windows 8 products, which I'm not, there isn't a need to upgrade.

I digress.

So, indeed there is some validity in you saying the prerequisites seem to also apply to software developers. The application, though, is very limited.

The way I see it, which I feel is the view for most in software development, is that you got the people, the grunts like you said, who grind out the code and you got the people who design and have a better overall view of the design of the program. The former have bachelors and I would think the latter have PhD or the potential to get a PhD.

There are those who can code and those who love to code. Grunts or not, they get the job done. Seeing just a software developer code doesn't say much about his potential to get a PhD. Those prerequisites I mentioned, might.