And in my extensive I've had way more schedule problems with western developers. It's likely we're dealing with different types of developers in different types of ways. Case in point: it sounds like you are in a corporate environment dealing with outsourcing firms. I'm basically an indi firm dealing with freelancers and other indie firms. Most of the time we cut mutual deals too - they get to sell the product in their own country and we split profits or pool them in our local currencies to put toward further bettering the product. I very much deal with individuals as individuals and there is very little top-down structure to the projects, just sets of goals and "tantou" style managers by module - usually in the country where that module is being made.
I've also lived around the world and have lived more than half my life in the east. I have American, Japanese, Russian, Indian, Chinese, Israeli and German realtives (yes, I'm serious) so I'm used to dealing with all sorts of different people on personal levels. On top of that I went to university in both America and Japan so I understand the very paradigims of creativity, imagination, creation, engineering and management are different.
You are correct about the increase in developer cost in Russia, India, China etc. but I don't think it's just about the cost of living increasing. Eastern European/Post Soviet/Russian developers are practically like a brand now - and they're the driving force behind a lot of big projects now (EG: we're currently using Kendo UI, which is made by a group in Sofia). And I'll be straight up - I ALWAYS choose Japanese over American. It's a personal bias based on experience just like yours - but I find Japanese developers to be the way more creative, efficient and clean than American and they're still less expensive even with the Yen so high.
I think it matters what business you are in and even then there is probably a different culture in different parts of China. All I know is that every time I've dealt with Chinese or Taiwaneese the first thing on the table was shao hsing. This was all trade and international business stuff, and these were very much jet-setter corporate guys.
I already fucking stated THEY set their rates. I ask THEM what THEIR rates are, I check my budget, and I make them an offer. If I can't meet their rate I tell them and they are perfectly free to turn me down.
Also I'm not forcing anyone to work for me. I get jobs and I make offers. I bring money to freelancers all around the world and we all make OSS software together. And I'll tell you right now in the past I have been very generous and have even cut my own take down to almost nothing to pay for good developers.
github, IRC, Mailing Lists, etc. But seriously, github. Oh, and github. You can see their code, what they do, and how they interact with others on github and immediately contact them. It's the social nework for coders. And I always establish a relationship with them before actually hiring them - get them on Skype, talk about new and interesting technologies, joke around, see what they do on weekends, etc. As it is every coder I have hired that worked out is someone I would love to meet in person. And after contacting them I've actually had some of them be so eager to show me they can write good code they'll contribute for free (everything we do is OSS and on github) which is a better than any interview.
And in the end you usually only need to find one coder for a project - that coder will have friends. If that coder is working out and you need more just ask them.
A word of caution though: different countries use diffrent coding methodologies and processes. It's not only how they are taught but a cultural thing as well. I think this is what puts people off of Indian coders so often: some of them can write fantastic code, but the order the write it in and how they interpret schedules is... "unique". On the other side you have eastern european and post-soviet coders who want really rigid and detailed schedules and will start to complain when you don't just fill trello with tons of ordered and prioritized tasks. Chinese/Taiwaneese coders will find interesting ways of reinterpreting designs and will often find interesting and time saving shortcuts.
Learn to drink. Don't turn down a drink. Take people you want to deal with out to drink. Read the air, act appropriately.
Other than that I don't think you need any particular business knowledge. From what I've gathered is that CN/HK/TW business revolves completely about being an awesome drunk.
You totally took what I wrote out of context. I have, do, and will continue to work with Americans and know quite a few very capable American programmers. I've also been ripped off and seen awful code from non-American programmers.
The point I was trying to make is this: it is the general atitude of many Americans that they are entitled to good wages and cush lifestyles simply because they are American. And if you grew up in America during the 80's and 90's what else would you think - I can't blame them. But the unfortunate reality is there is no inherent thing about being American that makes them better coders (a common misconception held by many American programmers). Again, this is a gerneralization, but on the other side of the coin you have equally skilled developers from countries that grew up in a place where they weren't told "you can go to college and get a degree and make a million dollars and own a big house and two cars". These people don't expect to work for their money, they don't expect to be able to go shopping for toys every weekend, they have a completely different work ethic simply due to the environment where they were brought up.
On top of all that is living cost: Amerians need to make more to live, and they need to make a lot more to live by what many Americans consider to be a "standard" or "not poor" life style.
So tell me: if you were me, and you had $1,500 - you had two candidates, one American who would work a week for that and one Eastern European who would work a month. Both are equally skilled. The American could barely make rent with that, but the Eastern European could make rent for 2 months, eat for two months, and have a little left over. Both are nice, both are easy to communicate with. Which would you choose? Why?
If I went to their country I couldn't get the jobs. I work with places like non profits and small businesses, so I don't have huge benefits, but I live in a country where we have a very highly valued currency. By hiring people in less developed countries I help them out, I deliver the same product at a much lower price, and I reduce my overhead risk.
I'm not at the top and I'm not American. I do live in a first world country with a highly valued currency, but the fact is I live in a mid sized apartment with one bathroom and half as many bedrooms as their are family members. Certainly not a ranch, I don't even have a yard and I'm not even living in the city. I have a regular car with a broken setereo. On top of that I work very very hard.
So when I pay $3k for a months work from an American and they write such crappy code I have to rewrite it all at my own expense it pisses me off. I had a loss of about $50k a few years ago because of exactly this (paid contract fees to a team of Americans who maid themselves out to be capable of doing the work + the time and resouces I had to put out myself to completely redo the project). Right before I cut off the American team one of the guys was complaining he needed to buy new tires for his sports car as I tried to figure out how to pay my bills and feed my kids. Oh, and sometimes my wife works days so we can make it. To them it's not even just about making it - they feel they somehow deserve to live in luxury and be able to go shopping every week just because they are Americans.
Your point about the endgame is probably dead on, but I think a lot of Americans don't realize that. They don't realize that America has basically run out of credit, and in the global economy American goods and services are twice the price (and going up because they're chasing the debt) and half as good.
I think you're misreading me. I have never fucked anyone over - I look for developers and pay them their asking rates. That includes Americans. I have however been fucked over by American programmers who decided to take money for work and then not actually do all the work or not do it properly. On the other hand I'm working with a full team from Bulgaria that costs the same ammount that single American programmer cost and every member of the Bulgarian team is extremely skilled and motivated and they are producing really nice code.
I mean I don't know what to say really - I work on projects from organizations that don't have a lot of money but still want to make software with meaning. We've produced medical software that could save lives, we're working on software for schools that will help them offer better educations, etc. These are all places without money - so I need to find good programmers that fit the budget.
And don't give me this "entitled" crap. The only thing I think I'm entitled to is getting the ammount of work pormised by the developer for the rate they ask.
*that American developers are top tier => that all American developers are top tier. I've had some good experiences with American developers too. And it's not like I've had nothing but good experiences with developers from some country in particular. Crappy programmers and good programmers are everywhere.
You totally missed the point. I can get top tier talent at much less the cost if I choose non-American (or centeral Europe, Canada, etc.). You can get great talent from eastern Europe, Taiwan, etc. etc. And you can't make the claim that American developers are top teir - thus far I've had more bad experiences with American developrs than not.
If you're trying to make the joke that Canadian dollars may as well be monopoly money compared to US dollars... I'm afraid to tell you one Canadian dollar is currently worth more than one US dollar. So it takes more than one US dollar to purchase one Canadian dollar.:(
I'm a project manger at an Open Source specialty development organization. I'm currently managing 4 developers nationally, and 6 internationally. We also have two trainees [nationally] who came in knowing almost nothing, because we simply couldn't and still can't find skilled developers to hire that will work within our Open Source budgets.
No, I'm saying American workers have the disadvantage of having a VERY HIGH living wage and thusly have a VERY HIGH price. On top of that the quality and quantity of work they can provide is no better than that which workers in less expensive areas can. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to hire more Americans but I just don't have the money to. I have budgets and at the moment profits are extremely slim after developer cost. If I hired Americans at the rates they want projects woudln't get finished without the company going into the red.
Because I can hire an Eastern European, Indian, Oriental or Asian worker with a better work ethic with a living cost less than a quarter the fee I'd pay to an American and I don't even need to worry about employment contracts or benefits or anything. Right now more than half the programmers I use are foreign and I get better code from them for $500 a month than I did American and Canadian workers at 3k+ a month. Sorry, that's just reality.
And before anyone starts posting "outsourced programmers are awful" or whatever I will tell you from extended personal experience you are wrong. Some of them suck, sure, but it's about the same ratio that suck in America. Do your homework, get sample code, have a trial period, and manage them properly with good tools (Trello and GitHub are amazing!). End of story.
That said, when put in context your point is excellent - but it is pointing out a very big problem: if I'm going to pay an American $2,000 for a weeks worth of code I want something 10X better than the code I would pay to a Russian for a weeks worth of code. That's a big order to fill.
You realize writing "tor blocked" in the search box in your browser and hitting enter would have yielded the result that not only is China blocking TOR, but some ISP's in the UK are already as well. I'd give links but I'd rather let you learn how to do your own research. You know, teach a man to fish and all that.
Not everybody has to post links because you're too lazy to search for your own information. If you can't find information that backs up someones point then go ahed and ask - but be warned whatever links people paste could be biased or fabricated to back up their point to begin with. Then there's always this: https://xkcd.com/978/ .
Uh, TomTom doesn't even exist in Japan. At least I've never seen one in my 13+ years of driving here, and I can't find ANY information about TomTom being available or usable in Japan.
Aaah, that is interesting and that is pretty web-relevant.
As for SVG being like a container format you'd be amazed. You can embed bitmapped image data (as in actually inside the SVG if you encode it - I used Base64), scripts, even non XML data formats (wrapped in XML of course). I'm positive if you wanted to you could find a way to embed video and sound - and I don't mean just links inside the SVG to an external file I mean actually inside it. After having dealt with SVG I had to write a COLLADA parser and I could easily draw some parallels, but I would say SVG is actually more flexible right out of the box.
I've done SVG work in Firefox years ago - before Chrome was even popular. It worked fine then and a quick test says it works now (for me at least?).
Of course SVG is a pretty broad spec (it's almost like a generic container format...) - I guess you're dealing with some SVG features that just aren't supported in FF.
Slashdot Mirror
And in my extensive I've had way more schedule problems with western developers. It's likely we're dealing with different types of developers in different types of ways. Case in point: it sounds like you are in a corporate environment dealing with outsourcing firms. I'm basically an indi firm dealing with freelancers and other indie firms. Most of the time we cut mutual deals too - they get to sell the product in their own country and we split profits or pool them in our local currencies to put toward further bettering the product. I very much deal with individuals as individuals and there is very little top-down structure to the projects, just sets of goals and "tantou" style managers by module - usually in the country where that module is being made.
I've also lived around the world and have lived more than half my life in the east. I have American, Japanese, Russian, Indian, Chinese, Israeli and German realtives (yes, I'm serious) so I'm used to dealing with all sorts of different people on personal levels. On top of that I went to university in both America and Japan so I understand the very paradigims of creativity, imagination, creation, engineering and management are different.
You are correct about the increase in developer cost in Russia, India, China etc. but I don't think it's just about the cost of living increasing. Eastern European/Post Soviet/Russian developers are practically like a brand now - and they're the driving force behind a lot of big projects now (EG: we're currently using Kendo UI, which is made by a group in Sofia). And I'll be straight up - I ALWAYS choose Japanese over American. It's a personal bias based on experience just like yours - but I find Japanese developers to be the way more creative, efficient and clean than American and they're still less expensive even with the Yen so high.
I think it matters what business you are in and even then there is probably a different culture in different parts of China. All I know is that every time I've dealt with Chinese or Taiwaneese the first thing on the table was shao hsing. This was all trade and international business stuff, and these were very much jet-setter corporate guys.
I already fucking stated THEY set their rates. I ask THEM what THEIR rates are, I check my budget, and I make them an offer. If I can't meet their rate I tell them and they are perfectly free to turn me down.
Also I'm not forcing anyone to work for me. I get jobs and I make offers. I bring money to freelancers all around the world and we all make OSS software together. And I'll tell you right now in the past I have been very generous and have even cut my own take down to almost nothing to pay for good developers.
+1 troll
Exactly what I thought. I did a double take on the title as well.
github, IRC, Mailing Lists, etc. But seriously, github. Oh, and github. You can see their code, what they do, and how they interact with others on github and immediately contact them. It's the social nework for coders. And I always establish a relationship with them before actually hiring them - get them on Skype, talk about new and interesting technologies, joke around, see what they do on weekends, etc. As it is every coder I have hired that worked out is someone I would love to meet in person. And after contacting them I've actually had some of them be so eager to show me they can write good code they'll contribute for free (everything we do is OSS and on github) which is a better than any interview.
And in the end you usually only need to find one coder for a project - that coder will have friends. If that coder is working out and you need more just ask them.
A word of caution though: different countries use diffrent coding methodologies and processes. It's not only how they are taught but a cultural thing as well. I think this is what puts people off of Indian coders so often: some of them can write fantastic code, but the order the write it in and how they interpret schedules is ... "unique". On the other side you have eastern european and post-soviet coders who want really rigid and detailed schedules and will start to complain when you don't just fill trello with tons of ordered and prioritized tasks. Chinese/Taiwaneese coders will find interesting ways of reinterpreting designs and will often find interesting and time saving shortcuts.
Learn to drink. Don't turn down a drink. Take people you want to deal with out to drink. Read the air, act appropriately.
Other than that I don't think you need any particular business knowledge. From what I've gathered is that CN/HK/TW business revolves completely about being an awesome drunk.
You totally took what I wrote out of context. I have, do, and will continue to work with Americans and know quite a few very capable American programmers. I've also been ripped off and seen awful code from non-American programmers.
The point I was trying to make is this: it is the general atitude of many Americans that they are entitled to good wages and cush lifestyles simply because they are American. And if you grew up in America during the 80's and 90's what else would you think - I can't blame them. But the unfortunate reality is there is no inherent thing about being American that makes them better coders (a common misconception held by many American programmers). Again, this is a gerneralization, but on the other side of the coin you have equally skilled developers from countries that grew up in a place where they weren't told "you can go to college and get a degree and make a million dollars and own a big house and two cars". These people don't expect to work for their money, they don't expect to be able to go shopping for toys every weekend, they have a completely different work ethic simply due to the environment where they were brought up.
On top of all that is living cost: Amerians need to make more to live, and they need to make a lot more to live by what many Americans consider to be a "standard" or "not poor" life style.
So tell me: if you were me, and you had $1,500 - you had two candidates, one American who would work a week for that and one Eastern European who would work a month. Both are equally skilled. The American could barely make rent with that, but the Eastern European could make rent for 2 months, eat for two months, and have a little left over. Both are nice, both are easy to communicate with. Which would you choose? Why?
If I went to their country I couldn't get the jobs. I work with places like non profits and small businesses, so I don't have huge benefits, but I live in a country where we have a very highly valued currency. By hiring people in less developed countries I help them out, I deliver the same product at a much lower price, and I reduce my overhead risk.
I'm not at the top and I'm not American. I do live in a first world country with a highly valued currency, but the fact is I live in a mid sized apartment with one bathroom and half as many bedrooms as their are family members. Certainly not a ranch, I don't even have a yard and I'm not even living in the city. I have a regular car with a broken setereo. On top of that I work very very hard.
So when I pay $3k for a months work from an American and they write such crappy code I have to rewrite it all at my own expense it pisses me off. I had a loss of about $50k a few years ago because of exactly this (paid contract fees to a team of Americans who maid themselves out to be capable of doing the work + the time and resouces I had to put out myself to completely redo the project). Right before I cut off the American team one of the guys was complaining he needed to buy new tires for his sports car as I tried to figure out how to pay my bills and feed my kids. Oh, and sometimes my wife works days so we can make it. To them it's not even just about making it - they feel they somehow deserve to live in luxury and be able to go shopping every week just because they are Americans.
Your point about the endgame is probably dead on, but I think a lot of Americans don't realize that. They don't realize that America has basically run out of credit, and in the global economy American goods and services are twice the price (and going up because they're chasing the debt) and half as good.
I think you're misreading me. I have never fucked anyone over - I look for developers and pay them their asking rates. That includes Americans. I have however been fucked over by American programmers who decided to take money for work and then not actually do all the work or not do it properly. On the other hand I'm working with a full team from Bulgaria that costs the same ammount that single American programmer cost and every member of the Bulgarian team is extremely skilled and motivated and they are producing really nice code.
I mean I don't know what to say really - I work on projects from organizations that don't have a lot of money but still want to make software with meaning. We've produced medical software that could save lives, we're working on software for schools that will help them offer better educations, etc. These are all places without money - so I need to find good programmers that fit the budget.
And don't give me this "entitled" crap. The only thing I think I'm entitled to is getting the ammount of work pormised by the developer for the rate they ask.
*that American developers are top tier => that all American developers are top tier. I've had some good experiences with American developers too. And it's not like I've had nothing but good experiences with developers from some country in particular. Crappy programmers and good programmers are everywhere.
You totally missed the point. I can get top tier talent at much less the cost if I choose non-American (or centeral Europe, Canada, etc.). You can get great talent from eastern Europe, Taiwan, etc. etc. And you can't make the claim that American developers are top teir - thus far I've had more bad experiences with American developrs than not.
If you're trying to make the joke that Canadian dollars may as well be monopoly money compared to US dollars... I'm afraid to tell you one Canadian dollar is currently worth more than one US dollar. So it takes more than one US dollar to purchase one Canadian dollar. :(
I'm a project manger at an Open Source specialty development organization. I'm currently managing 4 developers nationally, and 6 internationally. We also have two trainees [nationally] who came in knowing almost nothing, because we simply couldn't and still can't find skilled developers to hire that will work within our Open Source budgets.
No, I'm saying American workers have the disadvantage of having a VERY HIGH living wage and thusly have a VERY HIGH price. On top of that the quality and quantity of work they can provide is no better than that which workers in less expensive areas can. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to hire more Americans but I just don't have the money to. I have budgets and at the moment profits are extremely slim after developer cost. If I hired Americans at the rates they want projects woudln't get finished without the company going into the red.
That's insightful on some very deep levels. Extremely well put.
Because I can hire an Eastern European, Indian, Oriental or Asian worker with a better work ethic with a living cost less than a quarter the fee I'd pay to an American and I don't even need to worry about employment contracts or benefits or anything. Right now more than half the programmers I use are foreign and I get better code from them for $500 a month than I did American and Canadian workers at 3k+ a month. Sorry, that's just reality.
And before anyone starts posting "outsourced programmers are awful" or whatever I will tell you from extended personal experience you are wrong. Some of them suck, sure, but it's about the same ratio that suck in America. Do your homework, get sample code, have a trial period, and manage them properly with good tools (Trello and GitHub are amazing!). End of story.
That said, when put in context your point is excellent - but it is pointing out a very big problem: if I'm going to pay an American $2,000 for a weeks worth of code I want something 10X better than the code I would pay to a Russian for a weeks worth of code. That's a big order to fill.
Let's hope they get a few more if they keep appealing.
You realize writing "tor blocked" in the search box in your browser and hitting enter would have yielded the result that not only is China blocking TOR, but some ISP's in the UK are already as well. I'd give links but I'd rather let you learn how to do your own research. You know, teach a man to fish and all that.
Not everybody has to post links because you're too lazy to search for your own information. If you can't find information that backs up someones point then go ahed and ask - but be warned whatever links people paste could be biased or fabricated to back up their point to begin with. Then there's always this: https://xkcd.com/978/ .
Depending on how "rich" the interface is you may not be able to pay at all....
Though I must admit it continues to amaze me how well lynx can display a lot of pages. I only use it in a bind but it has yet to fail me.
Exactly what I thought!
Uh, TomTom doesn't even exist in Japan. At least I've never seen one in my 13+ years of driving here, and I can't find ANY information about TomTom being available or usable in Japan.
I'm sorry, you're comparing to who? NASA? Oh yeah, beacause NASA has a super flawless record...
Aaah, that is interesting and that is pretty web-relevant.
As for SVG being like a container format you'd be amazed. You can embed bitmapped image data (as in actually inside the SVG if you encode it - I used Base64), scripts, even non XML data formats (wrapped in XML of course). I'm positive if you wanted to you could find a way to embed video and sound - and I don't mean just links inside the SVG to an external file I mean actually inside it. After having dealt with SVG I had to write a COLLADA parser and I could easily draw some parallels, but I would say SVG is actually more flexible right out of the box.
I've done SVG work in Firefox years ago - before Chrome was even popular. It worked fine then and a quick test says it works now (for me at least?).
Of course SVG is a pretty broad spec (it's almost like a generic container format...) - I guess you're dealing with some SVG features that just aren't supported in FF.