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Dr. Dobb's 2012 Salary Survey
CowboyRobot writes "It's that time of year again, and Dr. Dobb's has posted the results of their survey of salaries of 3,500 developers and managers. 'While many salaries are flat, they are increasing overall, except for some heavily disfavored niches.'"
It should say software developers "are paid." Whether they actually "earn" it . . . is an entirely different matter.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I disagree with the author's take on 'ageism' - I bet that if skill sets were taken into account, the apparent ageism would disappear.
There are two kinds of 'old fart' in this biz - ones that doggedly refuse to learn new skills, and those that actively seek out and embrace new skills but have the hindsight and experience to see them in their proper place among the existing tried-and-true solutions. Too often I see young, inexperienced developers grab on to the latest thing, declaring it the be-all and end-all of programming. I've seen it a million times - their fervor eventually gets tempered by seeing that their shiny new toy isn't perfect and has more rough edges that advertised. I went thru it in my 20's, as did everyone else, I suspect. I'm old enough now to have seen the "Thin Client! No, Thick client! No, Thin Client!" pendulum swing a few times. :-( (For those of you too young, that would be "thin=Mainframe+terminal, thick=Borland Delphi, thin=web app, thick=phone app).
The consulting company I work for respects the type II old fart and values their experience. Apparently our clients do as well, since we're in high demand.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Germany is the nation with the highest wages in Europe, maybe in the world. You should not be surprised. I would gladly change my finnish pay for $100k a year.
Yes and no... in certain areas of the industry, absolutely. But when you start getting into fairly high-performance or large-scale systems, a lot of the abstractions start breaking down. When that happens, you need people who know what's going on under the hood as well.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
The tradeoff is that you have better insurance. Lose your job? Still have healthcare. Vacation? Guaranteed more than you'll ever get in the US, and if you don't take it your boss will make you. In the US if you take all your vacation you can be looking at finding a new job with a lot of employers.
If you're relatively low skill (waiter waitress type job) you can get paid a lot more in europe than the US. The downside is that paying for restaurants can be a lot more expensive than the US.
On average the US is better off (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_per_capita_personal_income) in terms of disposable income. But a lot of that wealth is concentrated towards people who are doing well. If you can be in the top 1% it's better to be an american than a german. if you're in the bottom 20 or 30%, german rather than american. Everyone in between those points is more of a lifestyle choice. Some people would prefer 5 weeks vacation and are happy taking trains to travel, some people prefer the freedom of their own car and working more.