According to who? For those that have successfully retrained from school teachers and shop technicians and into software devs, more than doubling their pay, I

According to who? For those that have successfully retrained from school teachers and shop technicians and into software devs, more than doubling their pay, I think they would consider it quite good. That they're working in the industry, despite whatever aspersions get cast their way, they're still working there and bringing home the bacon. The monetary specifics of the deal may be sour to some, even the successful ones, as the linked article talks about ($40k is a lot of money, even if you're making $100k!), but $100k is nothing to sneeze at if you were making $50k before.