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East vs. West: Culture and Distributed Development
CowboyRobot writes "ACM's Queue has an article entitled, Culture Surprises in Remote Software Development Teams
that reviews differences in cultures and explores the impact they have on distributed software development teams. From the article: "In Western societies, decisions are made on the basis of input from those involved. In cultures with greater hierarchies, group members assume an authority will decide and they are only to enact the decision." Some stereotypes and some common sense, but I recognized myself in the descriptions of the 'typical American'."
Let me see now... (Excuse me if I go a little back in time)
Viagra (Very very popular in US for some reason)
World Wide Web
Penicillin
>> We get about one killer film a year from France and that's about it.
As opposed to 50 shit ones from the US?
>> and the art and music is atrocious
Right - Beatles, Pink Floyd anyone?
You're an arse.
Actually I wasn't a troll and what is this crap about the world wide web being invented in europe.. Uh Mosiac was programmed where I work and NCSA so having facts just might help a little.
Yes, Europe has become more "Eastern" due to the Dirigiste nature of most European governments, as well as the power of unelected Eurocrats. More and more people wait for Godot, rather than taking control of their lives. You can also see this atrophication of will in many European companies. Most companies, especially on the continent, are either very large, or very small. The large ones are typically, if not actually owned by, hand-in-glove with the government, and the small ones are frequently doing at least as much business on the black market/unreported for taxes, as they are above board.
It was in large part to escape the stifling conformism and political correctness, as well as the sky-high unemployment caused by that, that I emigrated from Ireland to the US in 1984.
I've also lived in France, and the bureaucracy there is enough to drive anyone mad.
If all people ever did was take orders we wouldn't have oh well...
The World Wide Web
Any good software
Good movies
Good books
etc.
While following and giving orders works for digging ditches it doesn't do squat for innovation or creativity. Both of which have given us some pretty worthwhile advancements.