[wolfgke]

The interesting metric is "salary - costs of living". Since the costs of living are very high in SF, they are not paid that well.

[oh-kumudo]

Not every programmers are living in SF.

And I do think it is misleading to say programmers' salary is not high because of the cost-of-living. Cost-of-living applies on EVERYONE, there are many waiters/drivers/artists living in SF, and I don't believe they get additional rebate because they are not doing computer work.