[mynameishere]

Don't pull numbers out of nowhere.

http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresu...

There's no way that an "average" starting salary is 70k. Salary.com is famously inflationary and they have the median at 54K--and that's not just fresh grads. My guess would be more like 40K, with huge variations depending on where you live and whether you went to a well-known school. But then, "average" people don't go to well-known schools for the most part.

[smanek]

First of all, I said my numbers apply to major cites. Your own source places the median salary in th 60K-65K range for most metros.

Second, my numbers aren't pulled out of nowhere they are based on my friends and my experience. And they seem to be independently corroborated by litewulf.

Third, note that my poor/average/good ratings weren't based on quintiles or anything like that - it was based on my personal characterization of skill/pedigree (pedigree being a combination of experience, personal projects, and school - in about that order). I incidentally think that about 90% of programmers are crap (sturgeon's law), so it's likely that the median salary is ~60K with everything I said being true.

[lliiffee]

Fourth, "average" usually refers to the mean, and for distributions with big upper tails (like salaries), the mean is higher than median.

[qqq]

Your friends aren't average.

[ewanmcteagle]

FWIW, I've found Salary.com to be pretty good with it's mean and distribution information.