Compensating productivity

Additional thoughts on compensating programmer productivity all collected from the Why some programmers are 2+ times more productive? thread on Joel on Software forum:

• X. J. Scott: "Forgot to mention that the best (top 5% or so) are ten times better than average, not better than bad. So an average 'best' programmer is worth 10 average programmers (at least). An average 'best' programmer is worth 100 average 'bad' programmers (or infinitely more if the bad ones have negative productivity which is the usual case.)"
• Anonymous: "I don't think that figure is unique to programming. There are surgeons who are 28 times better than other surgeons. There are writers 28 times better than other writers. There are pro basketball players (Michael Jordan) who are 28 times better than other pro basketball players."
• Anonymous: "One issue is that a programmer who is 10 times more productive than average, typically only makes 10% more money than an average programmer."