Cultural Influences in Computing Technologies?

Jose Rojas asks: "I'd like to request the help of the international Slashdot community to help me address the following issues. I'm starting my PhD in computing science and I'm interested in understanding how computing technologies are shaped by the cultural environment where they are originally created. It is my hypothesis that computing technologies we use today are the result of an initial idea that essentially defines how a technology (i.e., a software application) will be used afterwards. Being the product of an initial idea, this technology is the tangible outcome of the mind of its creator. While I recognize that a prototype is subsequently shaped by social, commercial, cultural, and other various forces that popularize it, my position is that the computing technologies we use today are, essentially, the embodiment of the particular idiosyncrasies (beliefs, ideals, goals, or aims) of their original creators. Furthermore, since the personal computer and other computing technologies are said to be the product of the Western world, it is quite reasonable to suppose that computing technologies embody a Western view of the world, that is, Western ideals as to why they exist, what are their purposes, and what problems (if any) are they supposed to solve, but what are those philosophies, ideals, and purposes of computing technologies embodied in Western-produced computing technology?" "As computing technologies continue penetrating all over the world, and as other countries are empowered to develop native computing technologies, do computing technologies developed in non-Western countries originate from and embody essentially different philosophies, ideals, and overall purposes of technology? Do they address different needs? What are some examples of these computing technologies that originate from different needs, ideals, philosophies, and/or cultural environments? Are the characteristics of non-Western computing technologies transferable, or are they intrinsically bounded to the originating culture? Are there any lessons to learn from non-Western views of technology? And finally, are computing technologies developed in non-Western countries limited by the "Western" nature of the computer?

I will welcome any opinion, suggestion, advice, link, and any other resource the Slashdot community can point me to. Please, feel free to contribute and engage in this discussion."

Comments

Culture?

[Ajehals]

I assume that you are looking at this from a national / regional culture perspective, and that may be valid in some areas but I would assume the largest impact (well the largest 'cultural' impact at least) would not come from that area at all.

I have over time worked with a few programmers from a diverse range of national cultures and I have found that the only cultural impact that is discernible is the corporate or technological culture. That is to say that project management and technical approaches (using the latest tech or sticking to established and stable tech etc..) had an impact, whilst the individual team members backgrounds had little effect.

I think what you need to do is look at 3 - 5 applications that are not aimed at a corporate end user (to remove prevalent the corporate culture as an factor), and that have been written by different people / groups in different countries, and then try to identify where they came from. I am willing to bet that you will be unable to do so.

I would go further and say that if you look at open source projects developed around the world that the methods used in developing the code would not be largely different. Open Source would provide hopefully give you more insight as you should have access to the code and also be able to see what processes are being followed to create and update that code, as well as having a good idea of what the aims of the projects are and also what the impetus behind its inception were. Although I am sure the project and management methodologies will have been different, I would suggest that they would not differ based on a national or regional culture.

Technology is a global phenomenon, and the aims and objectives of corporations and even of individuals tend to be similar, moreover certain practices have been developed that just work, sure some were more prevalent in some societies in the past but now, as people have become more aware of what works, there has been a large amount of crossover, and the cultural element is largely gone.

Of course if you compare Open Source and Closed Source projects you will see in many cases a major divergence in methodology, but that will be because of the cultures inherent in those communities. To look at culture and its impact on IT, I would suggest you need to rapidly redefine what you mean by culture.

To put it bluntly, programming is not an art form, it is damn close at times, but it is not subject to as much interpritation as other areas. Whilst software is created with the aims of a creator in mind, and that creator will be in some ways influenced by his local culture when formulating his aims, I doubt that those aims would be unique, and If someone else from a different culture addressed the same aims I believe that the approach and end result would be very similar.

Lastly I should add that whilst I have tried to address in broad terms some of what you mention, I believe that this whole area is secondary to so many other factors that it is almost a non existent element, But that is just my experience, and is likely not to be representative of the industry as a whole.

I've seen computing in 3 cultures

[mrjb]

Disclaimer: These are wildly subjective.

In Indonesia, computing culture has been shaped pretty much by software piracy. It's fairly hard to make a living on writing commercial (read: mass-produced) software as you will find your work copied and spread around from the moment you sell your first copy. Protecting your software other than by law is vital, as the copyright law isn't properly enforced.

Also, with the average salaries there, some people might even be able to afford a computer (which will cost several months of salary), but no longer will have the means to pay for software. Back then, I even found myself using pirated software, not because I didn't *want* to use legal software but simply because legal software or even proper books weren't available. Mind you, this was before Linus wrote his famous Usenet post. As a result, it was terribly hard to find decent programmers in that area. Limitations in budget made it necessary to come up with creative, effective solutions. Only large companies and multinationals can afford custom-made software, as it is perceived as very expensive (even though programming services are hard to come by). Overall the culture doesn't support traditional software development, although the GNU movement has a good chance to work in such a setting.

In Portugal, things are different. Frankly I think they are a bit behind in their computer science education. Universities there still teach COBOL, the horror. Corporate culture values hierarchy quite a bit- Things are sometimes done in a certain way 'because I say so' even if a better solution exists. Programmers are treated as 'resources' or 'factory workers'- if you want more productivity, push them harder (instead of finding a way to work more efficiently). If things don't work out as planned, it is always the programmer who is to blame, because upper management never makes mistakes. Needless to say, this goes against modern insights. Possibly this still has its roots in the dictatorship that used to reign the country.

In Holland, up-to-date, proper education is no issue. The attitude is one of professionalism and open discussion. The upside of this is that if there is a problem, it will be clear where the source of the problem lies. The downside is that time may be wasted in meetings. Overall the culture helps support software development.

In most countries I've seen, most of the people that call themselves 'programmer' have never received any formal education. Then again, this also goes for management. Depending on the country, there may be a smaller or bigger notion of what is 'the right way' to do things, but in many cases this is disregarded anyway.

So, I would say culture definitely has a large impact on computing.

The WIMP metaphor as the FHB metaphor

[CandyMan]

A friend of mine told me that in a city in India someone put a computer with a touch screen in a street corner in a poor neighbourhood, where the street boys could play with it. They learnt to do things very quickly, and they started giving names to what they saw. "Windows" were "Fields", and "Icons" were "Houses". The "Pointer" was a "Bird"... I wonder what would come of Interface design in the hands and minds of people with totally different cultural constraints.

I don't know anything more: the story sounds half-apocryphal to mee, and I apologise for its vagueness, but I still think it is relevant.