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Crowdsourcing Software Development to the Masses
Lucas123 writes "Computer World is running a piece on Crowdsourcing. That's a catchy term for the practice of taking a job traditionally performed by employees or a contracted company and outsourcing it to an undefined, large group of people in the form of an open call on the Web. Article author Mary Brandel views it as a viable way to develop cheap but innovative software. Sites like TopCoder and their coding competitions are becoming more popular with big name companies like Constellation Energy because programmers who take on the job are global, offering many different perspectives on any one job. 'The creativity and innovation of how people are rationalizing these designs and building components enables us to interject a perspective and approach that normally we wouldn't have access to,' Constellation's director of IT said." Is there any potential here, or is this just a buzzword bad idea?
Only morons would do it.
At least they get what they pay for.
TopCoder has nothing to do with people accomplishing work. It's a competition, nothing more.
I bet this will be about as successful as my last idea, cokesourcing. I'd open my garage door in the morning and there would be piles of cocaine for anyone to walk up and snort in huge mounds. While they were there I merely encouraged them to add some code on the computers sitting in my garage.
I've never seen so many confusing drug related delusions put into comments! Luckily the comments made for a great book and that was how I, L. Ron Hubbard began Scientology!
Anyone who can turn this into Crysis 2 by noon tomorrow gets a lolipop and a free In Soviet Russia joke
DEF width = 1280
DEF height = 800
OPENCONSOLE
IF CREATESCREEN(width,height,16) 0
MESSAGEBOX NULL,"Failed to create DirectX screen","Error"
END
ENDIF
FILLSCREEN RGB(255,255,255)
sx = 0.1f
sy = 0.2f
speed = 1
They must have added the '-' in their address lately. Guess they got way too many requests from confused individuals.
Everybody uses broad generalizations.
Crowdsourcing?
You mean..
Open source?
Difference?
Hey I know, let's make up buzzwords for things that already have them. Yes, that's going to help.... I say we brick this idea.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
So there is no incentive for real programmers who already have a resume to bother. Only ameteurs and script kiddies would bother, so where is the quality code?
The idea has potential in some markets and for some industries however. I might offer to "crowdsource" for the local brothel by holding a bonking competition open to all the young ladies in my neighbourhood as a way of selecting the best potential hookers. I will personally judge all entrants to guarantee the quality: after all I'm responsible to my client - the brothel - for the quality of candidates. Winner gets $100, a twelve month contract and a chance to pad their resume with some real-life experience. Got to be a cheaper way for the brothel - sorry, "bordello" - to recruit quality talent.
Think it'll work :-) I'm willing to try.
We do not inherit the Earth from our parents. We borrow it from our children.