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Date: Mon, 6 May 2013 03:35:14 +1000
Subject: Re: Why do Perl programmers make more money than Python programmers
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
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On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 3:11 AM, Ignoramus16992
<ignoramus16992@nospam.16992.invalid> wrote:
> According to CIO.com, Python programmers make only $83,000 per year,
> while Perl programmers make $93,000 per year.
>
> http://www.cio.com/slideshow/detail/97819?source=ifwartcio#slide10
> http://www.cio.com/slideshow/detail/97819?source=ifwartcio#slide11
>
> I would like to know, what explains the discrepancy.
>
> Thank you!

Once, I was young and foolish too, and an ignoramus, just like you. [1]

There's a big problem with comparing statistical averages without any
indication of their spread. Suppose these are the salaries involved:

Perl = [15000, 30000, 80000, 100000, 143000, 190000]
Python = [15000, 30000, 80000, 100000, 190000]

That is, the guy who's making 143K a year didn't mention that he's
using Python. Voila! Your averages differ, yet statistically, there's
not a lot of difference. The best way to know how useful the averages
are is to look at the distribution, eg look at the difference between
the highest and lowest values, or the standard deviation of the
sample, or something of that sort. Without that, there's no way of
knowing whether a 10K difference is at all significant. I would posit
that, among salaries, it's meaningless.

ChrisA

[1] I don't know if you're trolling or not, so I'll give a serious
response. But I'm going to start with a quote from Emerald Isle.
http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/sullivan/emerald_isle/web_opera/ei14.html