How you guys think? Is that true? Anyone have a good example who work as programmer get extremely high pay?

There is lots of job available... just that no one good enough to fill them. Either that or they too demanding.

But you cant say you fully understand how creepy the job is until you really work it. Especially the "able to work long hour and stay on call" part.

That doesn't necessarily mean it has a good future.  How far do you think you can go as a programmer without switching to management?  In Malaysia, the norm is programmers, even senior programmers have a salary cap which you wont be able to exceed unless you cross over to become a manager. 

What's the ratio of programmer to managers?  It is definitely not 1:1.  Lets pick a number, lets say it is 5:1.  So your probability of becoming a manager, assuming all the 5 programmers are equals, is 1/5.  If you dont make it, you salary is flat-lined and wont increase anymore and you have to wait for the next opportunity.

You say you are living comfortably now, so?  Do you have a wife and kids?  Do you have a household to maintain?  Even if you do, do you think the cost will not increase?  When your kids grow, cost for food, leisure, education increases.  You want your paycheck to grow.  But in Malaysia programmers salary are capped. 

In some MNCs (and countries), they dont cap technical positions by non-technical positions, but that is NOT the norm.

Do not confuse opportunity of employment with salary advancement limit.  Just because there's a big market for the job, does not mean the salary advancement limit is high (and dont confuse salary advancement limit to opportunity).  Salary advancement opportunity in the IT industry in Malaysia is high, but the limit/cap is low compared to other white collar professions based on hourly work to pay ratio.

When you talk about future, you want to take ALL of these into consideration.  A lot of ppl switch profession, not because they cannot find another job, in fact they get tons of offer.  Most of my friends that quit IT, is because they realize the amount of work they put in is not worth it, since the cap on the pay is just too low, and the chance to leap to management is not that easy. 

Some ppl are lucky, most are NOT.

Heh I see salary and career advancement to be more significant to the Future than job demand.  Job demands are ephemeral, they can be a million opportunities today and zero tomorrow.  You can hardly say a profession has bright future based on that.  That is why I tend to look at it from the perspective of salary and career advancement.

In Malaysia, it does not bode well.  As I said, a lot of companies practice capping technical positions with managerial ones.  So you can only progress so far in a technical position like IT.  This what I base my points on.  I've worked in a couple of companies in the US as a software developer, they do NOT cap their technical salary advancements with managerial ones.  In one project that I was in, my team lead earned more than my manager because he had a lot more years of experience.  Try finding that in Malaysia, it is not the norm.