Slashdot Mirror
MIT Students Get an Education in Software Development
John Valenti writes "Philip Greenspun's Blog had an interesting entry for December 1: 'It turns out that most of the content editing and all of the programming work for OpenCourseware was done in India...'"
The interesting thing is that it's not that it was crap, but rather that it was done in India. Had they had some firm in the US do it, it wouldn't make the headlines...
There are equally good and equally bad firms all over the word that do development... India is no exception.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
because it looks like MIT chose a) the vendor and technology and b) the contractor to do with work with little investigation.
a) Speaks to their inability to even attempt to investigate various options WRT technology. Not encouraging from a place of learning.
b) Speaks to their inability to even attempt to use a neccessary IT project as something that could benefit their students and serve as a learning experience for the school and it's customers (the students).
I expect brainless, off-the-cuff, short-sighted decisions like this from PHB's, not from a center of learning.
Hope you don't live here in Indiana...
Story
(Note, the governor recently reversed the decision deciding to keep the contract in state - but only after tons of pressure was put on him)
Which is training Americans to be software developers...
A bastion of American software development is acting in a way that furthers neither America nor software development. No further criticism or comment is needed. In the immortal words of Hunter S. Thompson, res ipsa loquitur.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
considerign that RMS is very close by and several OpenSource Content Managment system proejct leaders within 75 miles of MIT ..I find that it shard to believe that MIT did not even look in its own freaking backyard!
so how big was the MS payoff?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
is the fact that instead of using cheap grad student labor, they outsourced to India. I can only imagine how many talented grad students MIT has at their disposal.
Plus, I'd assume that most grad students (at least all the ones I know) would apreciate the flexability of open source software, thus saving even more money.
I am more shocked at the waste of money!
However, if you want to talk about India, the fact that a US univeristy outsourced it's code does not bode well for it's graduating student. CS jobs are getting harder and harder to find here in the US. Why? Well that would be because it's cheaper to outsource it to places like India. The only drawback is that you tend to get what you pay for.
The reason this is on slashdot is because slashdot has a large population of tech readers of whom this outsourcing effects.
As an economy (such as that of the US) grows, the quality of life and jobs of the population increases/improves.
The quality of jobs necessarily means the type of work that the population is willing to do. Jobs which were considered white-collar, and high quality slowly sink, and are no longer considered so as people get wealthier (I am talking about the entire population here--the average).
The country then looks to exporting those jobs, so that it's population can work on something better...maybe higher level jobs.
That is what happened to manufacturing...it was considered a menial process, and shipped out to China, while the higher quality jobs (management, etc) were retained in the US of A.
That is what is happening to software/IT now. I thought it was an interesting take on the issue, in which case, it is just one of the pitfalls in the process of economic evolution of the industry.
And yes, I am not an economist.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The university I attended hired me right after graduation, however I've heard our new management frowns upon that and would prefer that recent graduates go get a job elsewhere. Then after they have outside experience, it's ok for them to bring their new expertise back.
I've seen at least one case where a student employee was involved in training his replacement instead of just being hired on full time for the job after graduation.
I believe you meant to say "nationalist." I'm not saying that's any better or worse, but by using the word "racist" you are furthering the stereotype that India is some small town where everyone is the same race. India is one of the most diverse nations on Earth.
;)
We should be joining with our Indian brothers and sisters and pooling our bigoty against Microsoft.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
If you play by the rules of capitalists and capitalism, the way to make it better is to make a corporation that makes good money with a good business model by not outsourcing and raping their customers; if you can do that, according to theory, there will be competitors who will spring up to steal your market and money by being more effective (at making money and satisfying customers), more efficient, or by offering a slightly better product/service/good.
If you frame the problem as capitalism as the problem, then your only solution is to endorse cooperation instead of competition for resources. Economics tells us there are limited resources, and capitalism is the common popular method in which those resources are allocated; you compete for them. The alternative is you share the resources willingly, but no one has figured out an efficient and effective way of doing it. Invariably people in power will manage to distribute the resources inequitably, in their favor... But even capitalism does that, with the side benefit that in the process, the person with the most power happens to do something good while simultaneously becoming the biggest target for other capitalists to take down!
GPL Deconstructed
Its already happening. Indians are now viewed as expensive since they think they deserve up to 10k a year. But that nerve!
In Russia, you could hire a Russian to do it for 7k a year. Where does it end?
When it comes to cheap labor, there is no bottom. Only a constantly falling top price.
Oddly when it comes to upper management and CEO's, there is always a bottom and no top in terms of compensation. Hmmm why is that?
That means exploitation. Hey, I would have no problem if CEO's had salary caps and could compete with cheaper foriegn CEO's but this is quite unfair for the rest of us.
http://saveie6.com/
well, that's pretty silly. the h1-b program is designed to fulfill a shortfall of jobs in the US. which is why from a quota of several hundred thousand annually, during the boom years, it has been cut back all the way to 60,000 or so today. not to mention that coming INTO the US has become a major pain with all sorts of biometric tracking and other scary 1984-style gimmickery.
there is no such shortfall of programming talent in the sub continent, so why would they have an h1-b visa program? there are the more usual ways of immigrating to india (just as for most other countries, including the US). the H1-B was not designed as a pro-india thing, but rather, a "increase the supply of skilled labourers to keep salaries down in the US" thing.
anyway, if you are willing to move to india and live on a regular salary, you don't need an h1-b equivalent program. just find a job and get your employer to write a business visa sponsorship letter to the indian (or pakistani, or other embassy of your choice) and you will be allowed to stay there for a finite amount of time, linked with your job. that is exactly the same as h1-b. and you wont be fingerprinted on your way in, like many h1-b workers are, in the US.
have you tried migrating to the subcontinent or was this more of a rhetorical point? people from other countries who really really want to, move to the US illegally. so if you are really that much in need of a job in india, that's one option that's open to you, besides all the legal visa routes. and your odds of never getting caught are pretty much 100%. nothing against the indian immigration service, but frankly, they really don't care much about catching you. for now, americans moving to india looking for employment is not that big a trend (kind of like the irish moving to the US in the early years). you can expect more "attention" and orwellian schemes to track you as an "alien" in India when more americans start moving there.
good luck!
p.s> i am not from india, but i am told that people in the south of the country are more pleasant, better educated and less "aggressive". you may want to consider hyderabad, rather than delhi, for instance.
why dont we hear bout all the far-eastern electronics and hardware that come into this country?
wasn't buying a japanese car sometime in the 60's and 70's also frowned upon? maybe it is not explicitly said that it is, but just by reporting it, you knowwww what is implied by the speaker.
maybe everytime someone buys a sony discman or a toshiba laptop, we should write it in our blogs, and raise our eyebrows and smirk a bit.
Forget outsourcing - I'm more surprised that MIT actually had to look and spend outside its own doors for setting up a CMS. any decent grad student woulda done it - not really a big deal. Ironic that a programming job for the EE/CE/CS department had to be given to an outside firm.
Being a student, who's always lookin for jobs related in my field to put in my resume, I would be pissed to learn my department spends money on any firm while I apply for a loan, and look around for a job.
NCompass was bought by Microsoft awhile ago. In fact, NCompass Resolution is basically Microsoft Content Mangement System.
Go to ncompass.com yourself...
actually, U.S. corporations are starting to have second thoughts about all the outsourced jobs:
1. Much greater overhead to manage an oversees project, such that the savings is really 2. Huge assumed risks - confidentiality of data, true abilities and qualifications of remote people questionable, political instability & nearness & greater accessibility by terrorists in region, lack of legal venue when things go wrong
3. faking of true status/costs/issues of projects by those who strongly reccommended outsourcing, to save face
4. Communication problems, lack of cultural context & "common sense [by whatever definition]" knowledge
I am somewhat surprised that what MIT needed did not already exist as commercial off the shelf code. Their requirements are hardly very unusual, in fact since the content is not going to change much once it is put up there is not a great deal of difference between this site and any other web zine.
What this looks like to me is a boondoggle. $2 million is pretty easy to spend on software if you go bespoke. That is the main reason why most of the open source arguments you see on slashdot are bogus. If you can pay $100K for a product that is 90% complete you are one heck of a lot better off than you are paying $0 for a product that is 70% complete, maybe on a good day.
Open source is great provided it does exactly what you need if you have to do extensive programming then Gartner are completely right.
Building a system around Microsoft CMS is one heck of a lot better than mucking arround trying to make CVS do this type of thing. I don't have an issue with that part. But $2 million to customize it...
Incidentally MIT students are hideously expensive. The student may not get paid much, but the overhead charged by MIT is horrendous and the results can be 'variable' to say the least.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
He was talking about the cost of the degree, as in (queue MasterCard commercial):
OpenCourseware (partly outsourced): $11 million
MIT Staff support: $2 million (of the 11)
MIT Comp. Sci. degree: $160000 per student
Learning about the true economics of modern software development:
PRICELESS
It is a little strange to read, in the pitch for OpenCourseware that:
"It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation, and leadership."
In some ways (the intent of the project), yes, absolutely. In implementation, well, somehow it seems a bit unfulfilling. But it is up and running. A custom-coded solution might have taken longer.
Anyway, there is a bit more technical information in the FAQ at:
"What technology is used to publish the MIT OCW Web site?"
and
"Is MIT OCW an open-source project?"
The answer for the second one is fairly long, and could be succinctly summarized as "no", but there is a list of open-source content management systems they are monitoring for future potential use, and which is worth looking at if you are interested in this subject.
"MIT is an American institution which educates global students and works with global corporations."
This is only true to a small degree. MIT is very much an American institution meant to educate AMERICANS and work with AMERICAN companies. Most of the funding for MIT's research comes from none other than Uncle Sam, who has a very keen interest in promoting American success. MIT could not possibly have the number of American students it does if it did not have a highly-restrictive quota on international students.
What you are seeing here is simply global capitalism at work. In this case, it really was not sensitive to MIT to require American workers to do this job (it's not a defense contract or any major advanced technology), and cost-wise it made much more sense.
As always, both sides of this outsourcing debate have valid points, and they both tend to point to extreme cases. IT is not a particularly "hard" field in the way it tends to need most of its workers. IT design is certainly difficult, but I don't think the field of content management is developing new ideas so rapidly as to need the number of computer science graduates in this country. Most of the workers needed are simply for setting up infrastructure--digital construction workers, in a way.
I'm sorry if this comes off unsimpathetically, but programmer != computer scientist, even if many programming jobs incomprehensibly require a BS in computer science, which seems to confer some sense of entitlement. For basic database programming, being a hobbiest or getting a degree at a 2-year trade school would more than suffice.
An unfortunate and difficult part of living in capitalism is the requirement that one must adapt. If you're not pushing the limits of your own abilities, someone is apt to come and screw you over by giving your job away to a person that makes 1/5 of what you did. If you have a BS in computer science and were simply programming, you may need to go back to school to get more knowledge of theory or find a new profession (or move to Europe, where I hear they don't force you to take jobs outside of your profession).
I think its good for those students to learn what to expect in the work place. They are indeed paying $160k for a computer science, NOT programming, degree, so they better as hell use it wisely.
So what would be a bad thing for American corporations to do? Heavily investing with research funding for international schools. That would then be developing outside economies instead of simply trading with them.
Please note that I am not inferring that students feel that way, but rather that management may have considered this possibility in their decision making.
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that ones work is terribly important." -BRussell
I am somewhat surprised that what MIT needed did not already exist as commercial off the shelf code. Their requirements are hardly very unusual, in fact since the content is not going to change much once it is put up there is not a great deal of difference between this site and any other web zine.
Being a senior IT guy at the University of Michigan, being an Ars Digita alumni, and knowing intimately how Universities work, I can answer this question:
Academic institutions LOVE to think that they are somehow different, special, gifted, unique, and dare I say it - divine.
We like to think that no one else can know our problems and only we can solve them, and refuse to acknowledge that there are only so many different solutions to the same problem. Academic computing boils down to these areas:
1) Registration/ student records management
2) HR/Payroll management
3) Content/presence management for publicity
4) Online learning systems
5) Security/signon infrastructure
5) Coordination of back office components between the other five
You can argue that there is a need for one more area:
6) Research computing
but that normally is a separate group from ACADEMICS.
I am constantly amazed at how much universities spend on their systems, and how much customization they do - to the tune of MILLIONS of dollars a year. And then, on top of that, when one department decides to go another route, THEY spend alot of money, and then the institution has to eventually roll that structure back into the overall schema, costing even MORE money.
The bottom line is that university IT systems need to be run more and more like corporate IT, and the same amount of planning, forethought, and most of all INTELLIGENCE needs to be applied.
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel. -
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
If there is a disparity between mean and median, mean would be higher here, since the high paying jobs would distort the distribution and pull up the mean.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
> If you don't have a Microsoft OS, you can't
...) as long as you pay the yearly fee; it doesn't matter what OS you use.
> get a digital certificate. If you can't get
> a digital certificate, you can't get access
> to anything from your home PC.
What are you saying?!? Anyone can get a digital certificate (from Verisign, Entrust,
Also, you can use SSH to get into your home PC and transfer files around.
I find this whole discussion about M$ and MIT very disturbing. The part that bothers me the most is MIT's ignorance.
Cost of living in India is vastly lower than it is in the U.S. There is no possible way that I can compete with an Indian programmer on the basis of pay, unless I emigrate.
Being forced to compete with others on a completely unequal scale is a downside. That's why the U.S. is being threatened with sanctions over its steel tariffs. It makes it really hard for foreign nations to compete. Ya dig?
That's the fundamental problem. We have an unequal playing field, and in an environment where cost is valued over all else it isn't a competition, it's a blowout.
I really, really hope that globalization can help India and other countries boost their economies and develop themselves into the "1st World" nations they can be*. I just wonder what damage it will do to our economy in the meantime.
* Since outsourcing is only one half of the coin, the other half being U.S. companies sucking money out of developing nations, I don't think this is certain at all.
The enemies of Democracy are
Being forced to compete with others is not a downside.
Globalisation has been good for employers in the 1st world, but employees are screwed. True globalisation would mean that prices would fall (in the 1st world). Why do we pay so much for goods and services in a "global" market?
Those jobs will be back. Here is why, $MONEY$. Yep thats it. You send project X out to some other company to be done. It comes back MOSTLY done. Along with a HUGE pile of paper (to show they were working of course). You will end up with something that 1) does not meet your busness need 2) is not done. They will then try to 'squeeze' you for more money. The money will be used for 'more documentation' as you were not very clear what you wanted. It will also be used to change the GUI. That way it looks like they did something.
Ive seen this dance a few dozen times. It only takes about twice before some cluefull mangager goes. HELL we can hire a ARMY of programmers here for years for what we paid these loonies.
Take my advice if your outsourcing like this *HIRE* someone who has a clue what the other end is trying to do. Make that person beholden to YOU. Also hire a different person to manage the contractors. Or you will get such a shafting you will be out of busness in no time. Put things into the contract about finish times and quality of work. You get quite a eye opener when you find out they were just milking you. Most of the large firms are. Then if your inside guys tell you that its NOT going to work, *listen*. Dont give them more money to fix it. You will then find out they are holding your code that you paid for hostage.
These are the people your are dealing with. They will do themselves in. The ones who continue to deal with them, deserive each other...
The answer is easy.
supply and demand. Anyway can flip burgers so McDonalds pay less. However not everyone can be a programmer or I should say a good programmer so wages were up in the 90's.
Microsoft is clever at this when they oversupplied the market with Office and then IE to bring its value down.
After competitors went under they brought the price back up. Wallmart does this illegally as well when they move into a new area to compete agaisnt local small and mom pop shops.
What happened was the H1B1 boom upped the supply and brought down demand. Then corporate america threw in Indians, Russians, and Chinesse to super oversaturate the market!
Now as an IT worker you are competing with so many people, that the specialized skill becomes generic and so does the salary just like the kids who apply at McDonalds. Loads and loads of developers for each position. So why should you pay more?
My answer to this is simple and goes agaisnt the current policies of free trade. CUT SUPPLY.
Put in tarrifs that make Indians almost as much as Americans. After this you will now be able to pitch to a boss easier with less applicants competition which in return raises the salary.
I think this may happen only when CEO's aka campaign contributers begin to look as expensive commidities. After all Indians have MBA's as well as CS degree's right? They only lack experience. As soon as management gets outsourced then cheaper CEO's will be born and bite the greedy bastards in the ass.
Of course that is a few decades away but I think it will ultimately happen unless things change in the current business climate.
Last, what is to not stop American businesses from totally moving to India? Think about? You would make many times over your current salary as a CEO in billions from shareholders!
If that happens you can bet their competitors will do the same to remain in business. Then you will have no jobs left here and tarrifs and protectionism will return.
http://saveie6.com/