Average = Average you have 100 developers 49 and below are bellow average :P
Not exactly. Average is defined as the 50th percentile, which if you have 100 developers, and can (objectively) rank them in order from 1 to 100, then there is a chance that 49 and below are not "average" or "worse than average." Consider a sample distribution where all 100 employees rank exactly the same. Now all 100 are average. Consider a sample distribution that takes on a bi or tri-modal form, where employee groups cluster at certain knowledge or experience levels. Here you might find that "average" is hard to quantify, as it is not well defined when your distribution does not follow "normal" rules.
We are talking rank so top person ranked 10,000 and the bottom is 1. 10,000 - 5,000 are Above Average and the 4,999 to 1 are Bellow Average.
What you showed was some abstract numbers that have nothing to do with ranking.
But even assuming it's a ranking - in a ranking there's possibility of equal rankings, right?
So, you can have rankings [1, 1, 1, 1, ..., 1, 10000], and the "average=median" assumption is violated again.
Most real-world distributions have different average and median values, the "50% is below average" is a common misconception that should be cleared out.
For one important example see average salary - huge majority of people in (almost) every country earn less than average salary in that country.
EDIT: Oh I think you looking at this like average house hold income with Bill Gates throwing off the average possibly? Well we are talking about only one thing and that is the skills of a programmer compared to the skills fo other programmers. Just the same as the average math skills of children. This is why we have percentiles and my argument still holds on. Skills are not like money where one person has $60,000,000,000 and another has $100.
> the turning of something abstract into a concrete thing or object
We're talking abstractions from the start. The only abstraction all my posts here rely on is the assumption that skill level is 1-dimensional. And you started using that assumption (by referring to average developer).
Real world example:
There are 10000 programmers. Many of the programmers that are just starting to learn have similar skills to each other. Some of them work for a few years already. Their skill levels start to diverge. Many of them never develop their skills too much (because they never need to and aren't self-motivated enough). Some of the programmers got lucky, work in places that allow/require them to learn forever, and become very, very good. There are few of them, and their skills vary widely.
There are tons of people near the bottom, and very few people near the top. It's natural consequence of the amount of work and focus it takes to move from the bottom to the top.
Ranking them hides some of the differences, but not all (because it's much more common for people to have the same rank near the low end of the spectrum, where there is much more of them, than near the top - where there is just a few people separated by big gaps). So, when you took ranks from these people you would get sth like below (1=worst, 10000=best, if your ranking works the other way - reverse it it still works the same)
[1 (repeated 20 times), 2 (repeated 15 times), 3 (repeated 10 times), 4(repeated 5 times), ..., 100, ..., 10000] - so the distribution would still be skewed and the average would still be different from the median value.
Real world example: It is still an non-measurable skill set.
> so the distribution would still be skewed and the average would still be different from the median value
You also mixing up vocabulary your still taking average = mean BUT average also means median.
Here is real world ranking of skills (Math, Science, English and Reading) http://blog.prepscholar.com/act-percentiles-and-score-rankin...
Once again what scores are you comparing? When I went to Graduate School I had to do GRE and MAT test and I needed to be over 70% percentile on the test just to be average in my field of study (Theology (highest of all fields of study while Education had one of the lowest scores which makes me laugh) This had HUGE implications on my later PhD program acceptance. I couldn't say I was above average in my field because I scored really high. I had to be better then well over 75% of the people taking the test in my field of study. Just because there are a ton of beginners that start and leave that doesn't mean that there isn't a middle and that middle ground will have great skills above the learners. I counter the argument on this paper discounting average developers and placing the blame on their co-workers and environment. Average workers are not to be looked down on.
What is the average fruit from a set of 10 different apples and 3 different oranges?
It was your assumption that skill level of 2 developers can be compared.
And it's not an useless theorethical distinction. In lay terms: most programmers are worse than average skill level of all programmers.
I even showed you real world example. IT is growing very fast, so most people are beginners.
I'm not trying to look down on anybody. Being better developer doesn't mean you are a better person, and I'm not above average IMO anyway.
EDIT: I looked it up (I'm not native English speaker), and you were right about the math terminology. In Polish average=mean=średnia. Damn false friends. So, if you meant average as median I agree.
Due look at the link for ACT Test (For college admission) this kind of shows how to make an average of skills and rank them with a population group. In statistics you can do just about anything and it can be scary but there is always a middle and it just depends on your decision on what is the best tool to use.
Have a great day.
This isn't necessarily true. Imagine a system where we could rate developers. There are 4 'A' developers (92,95,97,91) and 2 'B' developers (83, 85). Only 1/3 of the developers are 'below average' as compared to below median, and flip those numbers around and 2/3 are below average. This is kind of important when evaluating the type of company culture that you're in. Is it a place where there are a lot of 'top 5%' developers, and a short tail of good, but not great developers. Or is it a place where there are just one or two developers that doing 'A' work, but a long tail of developers doing solid, but not great work. The 'average' could be misleading in these cases.