Does the 'Hacker Ethic' Harm Today's Developers?

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions whether the 'hacker ethic' synonymous with computer programing in American society is enough for developers to succeed in today's economy. To be sure, self-taught 'cowboy coders' — the hallmark of today's programming generation in America — are technically proficient, McAllister writes, 'but their code is less likely to be maintainable in the long term, and they're less likely to conform to organizational development processes and coding standards.' And though HTC's Vineet Nayar's proclamation that American programmers are 'unemployable' is overblown, there may be wisdom in offering a new kind of computer engineering degree targeted toward the student who is more interested in succeeding in industry than exploring computing theory. 'American software development managers often complain that Indian programmers are too literal-minded,' McAllister writes, but perhaps Americans have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. In other words, are we 'too in love with the hacker ideal of the 1980s to produce programmers who are truly prepared for today's real-life business environment?'"

Comments

Re:Stop posting McAllister. He's the new Dvorak.

[hairyfeet]

This will probably get me modded down, but what the hell, i got karma. You want to know the REAL difference between an American and an Indian coder, and why they think of us as "cowboys"? One word: Adaptability.

Working on this job with a really sweet Indian girl, who was quite happy to be an American citizen now and said she wouldn't go back if you paid her, I asked why does Indian tech support suck. This was after we were all rolling on the floor laughing as she dealt with tech support by cursing them in Hindi when they told her to reboot again. She rolled her eyes and said "it isn't just the tech support, it is the programmers too. I would take one American over a dozen of my countrymen if they have never lived here for any length of time". She then sat down and explained it like this-

"It is the caste system" she said, "There you NEVER question those above you, ever. if your boss says the sky is purple and 1+2=12 then that is the truth. You never question those above you for any reason. Which works fine as long as it is something that can be written down and followed step by step. But life and computers rarely work that way. They always throw you curve balls and pull weird things that somebody forgot to write down. In those cases the American will "pull a Macgyver" and make it work. The Indian will just be lost, as you just don't do things like that. That is why I am quite happy to be here, thanks."

So if you want to know why they think of us as "cowboys" there you go. It is because an American will try to figure out a weird problem while the Indian will wait on his/her boss to tell them what to do. Which is fine if you want nice little drones that can't think for themselves, but we just aren't built like that. And I for one am quite happy about that. So call us "cowboys" all you want, but it gets the job done.