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 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
