On: Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity

[scott_s]

I meant "the developers you can see" to imply the people around you. That's a small sample size, and not representative of the entire world.

[joe_the_user → scott_s]

A small sample size would just imply greater deviation. There's no reason to assume the programmers outside your sample would be x10 better than those in your sample.

[scott_s → joe_the_user]

That only works when you can assume your sample is representative of the global population. Since people are not evenly distributed according to their abilities, that assumption will not hold.

[TeHCrAzY → scott_s]

But in a generalisation, you have to generalise.