Most of the comments I see here are from guys who feel its beneath them to go to a different country, work at a rate considerably less than what they "used" to get paid here and live out a satisfactory life. Nope, they want to live here, since they are used to their lifestyle here, live among the opulence of others (even when they dont have it), and grudge day in and day out about lost opportunities and how well the market seemed a few years ago. Sorry boss.. its true that you dont have that many options anymore, and yes, its true that corporate america has screwed you in the arse ultimately, and has chosen India as its new bed partner.
Think about this, all these software engg you see or hear about in India do not take for granted that their jobs will stay and hold for the rest of their lives. And you, God forbid!, who lives in a Capitalist community believes having a well paid job is a privilege??? I hate Corporate America, their lobbyists and the politicians who would jump in to bed with the lot if they could top their coffers, but at the same time I pity the arrogance of people who feel that its beneath them to get out of this country and look for better jobs, better wages and a better life elsewhere in the world. Yes, you might have to cut your ties for a while, you may have to sell or stash everything you got for a while, yes you might have to get new friends for a while, just imagine what you would lose out if you were to stay inside your little coccoon for the rest of your life, with out being exposed to the different people,cultures,life styles,sports out there that you didnt know about?
I have been in US for the last five years of my life and I have seen and experienced more than I could ever bargain for and I have been better off for the most. I found new friends, people who I would have otherwise never find, I found a life which was better in some ways that I could have back in India, and I found slashdot. So yes, I am better off, in my own ways.
So, get off that pedestal and start seeing the world with a whole different perspective. Learn that life and people exist outside your community. And while you are at it, get a job somewhere else in the world and find out why everyone else think American's (atleast some) are so oblivious to the rest of the world and what they think. Good luck!
Dont know how many here knows what happens behind the scenes when you rip any Disc (and if I am talking out of my ass, please correct me).
Every CSS encrypted disc contains the key, which when the DVD Player encounters encrypted content, looks for and finds to decrypt the content at runtime.
Now when we rip the DVD to make a copy (for piracy or for fair use), the tool uses the key to decrypt the media and dumps the decrypted media to our hard drive, but not the key. Then we go ahead and burn it to any standard DVD+/-R Disc. Understand that any standard DVD-R/DVD+R disc you buy from the store is similar to the DVD that came with the original movie, except for one - the part where the encrypted key will reside cannot be burned on to. Which means, if you were to try and make a One to One copy of the movie disc, you will be able to write the encrypted media on to the new Disc, but the DVD writer would not be able to write the key on to the new Disc, since that part is not writeable (dont know why, but thats how it is).
So essentially, we are not making a one to one copy of the movie. We decrypt the media and write the decrypted media on to the second disc and throws away the CSS key. Now our DVD Player finds decrypted media and has no need for a key, so merrily goes along and plays the content.
I am all for Fair Use, and I hate RIAA more than I hate MPAA (because of the prices). But when we rip a DVD for Fair use and claim that its a One to One copy, thats not necessarily true (or hold up in court) since they can always argue that the Key is not copied over as well as the media is decrypted as well. IANAL, but wouldnt that hold merit in the legal system?
seems like his whole point is that "Where do you want to be when you are 30?. Would you like to be married to some good looking girl, drive a car, own a home in some fancy neighborhood".
Now, I dont need to answer him, merely look back on history for the last few hundred years. If everyone who ever lived had their sights set on that sort of goal, this world, this life that we live, these things that we see around us in our daily life, would not exist.
Everything that you see, around us, everything that we use in our life, everything that makes our lives a bit more easier, a lot more sane, are because of people who gave up that dream to have a home at 30 and living with a beautiful girl. And if it had not been for those few, we would never know our true potential.
Not everyone will achieve that dream of true greatness, thereby inspiring the rest of the world to be like them, but if we dont follow in the paths of people who inspired us, then what good we are, as fellow geeks, as fellow human beings.
All of the above. And I been in US since the last six years.
I am glad that finally geeks from my part of the world have had a chance to talk on Slashdot. I have always thought there would be a general disdain towards geeks from that side of the world, owing to various constraints such as culture/accent/life style etc. But thanks to Rob, I am glad to see that this community has finally realized that its no different from the people half way across the world.
I saw a thread about democratically elected communist govt. My state is one of them, its called Kerala and it is towards the southern most tip of India. Mostly literate citizens for whom politics, art/literature and food is probably the most important three facts of life. As it should be. I wouldnt dare call it a communist govt, more like a Socalist party.
I had a buddy of mine from good ole TX visit India with me an year ago and even work there with a team of programmers for over six months. It was quite a culture shock for this dude but he enjoyed every minute of it. And yes, Indo-chinese food can kick Chinese food's arse all over china! And please, North Indian food isnt all its made out to be. If you generally like to eat good food, try South Indian cuisine..thats where curry started...
I hope this Q&A gets posted right on top for a few weeks so that everyone here who thought (atleast for a while) that their counterparts in India were code monkeys and devil worshippers, ought to be proven wrong:)
I see a lot of comments to the effect of "Why would you want to work in India for a lesser salary, since even if you save a ton, it wouldnt amount to anything when you move back to US"?
Well, those who do say such things dont take in to account the possibility that US currency may not amount to much 20-30 years from now. And possibly, just possibly, if China and India is indeed the future, who knows what you save might be a tidy enough sum for you to retire.
(1) Dont hate Indians. They are competing with you on the job market. However its still a US firm choosing them over you.
(2) If the Govt would only force US companies from using Cayman Islands as a Tax Haven, we would save in one year atleast tens of billions. And as far as I am concerned, thats more evil than Outsourcing.
(3) India will be more affected when the Outsourcing mania ends. It has currently three times the amount of programmers and all of them would not be able to find a job when the outsourcing bubble bursts.
(4) Outsourcing to India is just like Dotcom was to Silicon Valley. Both are bubbles which should burst
(5) As the author of the article mentioned, Indian firms has a fascination towards Quality Certifications. However this affinity to process could prove to be irritating to US firms who demand change.
(6) 90% of the team who worked for me from India quit and moved to a bigger firm since the last project. Which means the market is definitely in a state of flux. US firms will definitely note this trend and wont be pleased when key people leave without qualms in the middle of the project.
(7) Indians prefer job stability over anything else. Also, they tend to view Bigger firms as better employers and a better fit over smaller firms offering an environment to work on better projects.
Well, it is a regular sight on Indian roads and even though I hate it, there was hardly anything on the roads then that will withstand the road itself (or the lack of it!)
The car is so bad (my Dad still has one) that I heard when some foreign delegation came to visit they commented that the only thing on that Car which dont make a sound was probably the Horn!
And noise is another staple on Indian roads..we love to use our Horns till someone sticks it up our collective ass!
who are with me, and thinking along with me, Who the FSCK is this idiot and why should i give a damn about what HE and his shitty firm think about resumes?
Joel:Attention, the entire population of India: whenever you have a comma, there is always exactly one space and it's always after the comma and never before it.
Please, for the millionth time, anytime you see another article about India, dont go all mushy eyed about its billion residents going hungry to bed every night, the cruelties of its caste system, blah..blah and blah. These things will change as time moves forward. It wont be a revolution, more like a natural progression as the old habits die, and the old system dies along with it. The young people of this country are as progressive and liberal like the rest of their counterparts in other countries, and do not judge each other on the basis of color/creed nor caste. Cause, its just not cool to be a racist!
Now, if India were to focus just on feeding mouths, then it would lose out on all other fronts. Pakistan is more than just another threat, past has taught us more than just that. China is another grave threat that we are trying to turn in to a positive relationship. Sure every country has a good side as well as a dark side and I am sure India does its own share of black ops against its enemies, but they are less and too far in between.
India hasnt been so lucky in its neighbours like United States (except for poor Cuba), like Israel. Which is why, these two countries share a special relationship which persevered even through the cold wars, when relationships werent so perfect between India and United States.
Anyway, if the bureaucrats want to create a portal for the farmers of these godforsaken villages, why would you stop them in the name of feeding mouths? You want to stop all technological advancements just because everyone doesnt have enough to eat? If every country decided to do that, there would be no advancement at all, neither in the public, nor in the private front.
Dont be stupid! There will always be incompetent/stupid leadership if there are people to vote them in to power. To see an example, we only need to look inwards..(here..bushie..bushie..) If there are enough stupid people in this great country to vote a village idiot in to power, then are you going to blame them for voting in to power, corrupt politicians?
Actually our experiences are not that much different.
While I was getting shitty quality from my offshore partner, I talked to one of my buddies from CA, whom I know for over 7 years and who ironically initiated me to a community called slashdot 4-5 years ago. I asked him to help, he currently works for a Fortune 100 and he, thank God, said he would.
And he is the only person responsible for turning this around. I brought him on, explained the system to him in less than an hour and we went ahead and designed the rest of the system, some of its parts were quite complex.
The offshore partner ranted and dragged their feet, complained they couldnt understand the design, did everything possible to not work, while myself and my buddy were putting in 18 hour days, trying to put together this system.
In the end, the offshore partner contributed less than 10% of their deliverables, while the rest was put together by this lone coder from CA.
So yes, Trust is a main issue. And it doesnt matter whether your Offshore partner is in Russia, Romania, India, Vietnam, China what not. Outsourcing needs to be thought through out from inception to transition. I wrote a paper for my firm elaborating on the weaknesses and strengths of this model, and Trust and Communication ranks high on whether this model will crumble or succeed in any project.
And please, dont even think that this will be a cookie cutter model that you can apply to any living/breathing project. If you do, then you WILL regret that decision a few months down the line. And by then it will be too late.
Think before you act, it worked in all other aspects of life. And it will work here.
I am as Indian as they get:). I have nothing against any race or any color. And yes, my ex-offshore partner was Indian as well, but that doesnt change the fact that they were incompetent.
I wasnt issuing a blanket statement about all Indian outsourcing firms. I am merely referring to the fact that most of the firms who indulge in outsourcing are plainly jumping on the bandwagon with nary a thought about its implications in the long run. And hence outsourcing isnt here to stay, it will blow over very soon when firms and managers realize that it makes more sense to have the team onsite rather than having someone do most of the work at night when you arent around to manage.
And if your offshore partner is a plain schmuck, like was mine, they will shaft you at every step possible, by overbilling you, by working on other projects in the hour they bill you. Believe me, I have been a witness to this and much more.
Trust me, I manage a project which is outsourced and currently employs 3 software engg offshore.
The pluses -
(1) Benefit in terms of costs. Well they bill us 30 bucks for a software developer where here I would assume it will be around 60.. Whoopee doo..
(2) The supposed 24 hour day where your team onsite would plug 12 straight hours and your offshore team would plug in another 12 hours, therefore giving the client the impression that his project was worked upon for 24 hours..
(3) Now that implementation is made seperate and outsourced, the client just needs to focus on the business aspect and the designm therefore having more time to themselves to focus on issues that need attention
Minuses
(1) Cost is not that much better. Quite soon, firms will try to up the prices and then you will lose the benefit in terms of cost
(2) The 24 hour Day - Its quite different from what you are led to believe. Mostly both teams would take a couple of hours everyday trying to understand what the other has done, interact and to a certain extent, also play the blame game.
(3) The client would find himself being pulled more often back in to the implementation and design, since his offshore partner cant understand the design or has a "better" design. Chaos ensues.
Mostly from my experiences, what makes all the difference is the people who are developing this offshore. If they are intelligent enough and has good communication abilities, then you have a success story. If what you have is a guy who did a 14 day java crash course and has one year experience in plugging java code in to Helloworld.java, then you have an absolute wreck waiting to happen. It happened to me, I had two stupid asses with whom I spent 3-4 hours every night trying to drill in, the architecture, the requirements, the implementation details. And then I would wake up in the morning and they would have probably coded 10 lines and sent two emails with questions which either are stupid or should have been asked the night before. So what you have is two asswipes who just billed you for 16 hours and turned out 10 lines of code, of which 9 you will probably rewrite and a bunch of questions which doesnt amount to nada.
I dont think that any firm who is currently doing outsourcing has thought about the actual implementation through and through. They are all given rosy pictures of intelligent professionals back home plugging away on their keyboards churning out code that works on the first try.
More so, in a few years, the real picture would come out where probably 10% outsourcing actually churned out something positive and the rest 90% lost money, less money in fact, on projects which had no direction, no able offshore partner and a bunch of developers who doesnt know the difference between a class and an object if it kicked them in the ass with it.
Sorry I just had to rant, since I spent a better part of my night trying to work with some idiots and two days ago I kicked them out of the project. And in a combined 300 hour period, they coded two classes, and the style of coding will make you puke.
I recently read somewhere (think it was cnet) that Microsoft was readying its trolls for one last rally against OSS. That they were getting ready to unleash another PR battle against OSS and point out that bugs/flaws take longer to fix in OSS than in MS world..
Well, I think it just takes the edge off when you know its coming.. And with MS, FUD is always flying around, sometimes they end up with s*it on their face.
Why dont they just shut up and make their software better.
Not that kind of purchasing power, but the super computing power rather..
According to this Wired article a small firm in CA called Clear Speed will soon revolutionize the PC space with Super computing power.
I know we will all believe it when we can find these chips on Bestbuy aisle no:4, but still currently from where I am sitting (I am sitting on a Microsoft biztalk server 2004 training session, boring as hell, being inundated by claims of innovation by a clueless trainer who programmed in Visual basic for her entire life), Clear speed is as close to Innovation that I can think of and its more of them that this industry/world need, and less of Microsoft.
Oh..lunch time.. gotta go hit on some free sandwiches. Viva la microsoft..
IMHO, and for someone who has been running Windows 2003 server beta on a dev workstation for the last 9 months, I been extremely happy with it.
I have got tons of tools/utils that could bring an XP box to its knees and outright destroy the damn thing. 2003 server has so far been gracefully handling the pressure with no blue screens till last week.
Last week, I came across from first core dump when I was playing around with the Cisco VPN tool and it core dumped (it was due to bad drivers, couldnt find native ones) giving a BAD_POOL_CALLER error a bunch of times.
I thought Xp was way decent than the shitty 98SE and the unbelievably piece of crap ME, but 2003 server has proved that theres a lot of room for improvement. I think they still have a long way to go to capture the server market.
Disclaimer : I have been running a server operating system on a workstation, I admit. Theres guides available to tune the OS to make it run as a workstation and for gaming.
Also, Microsoft has finally shipped an OS with most of its services disabled (including sound) rather than running in to a "gotcha" moment down the line.
First of all, I am going to try to write an unbiased opinion since I have managed both onsite as well as Offshore projects. Infact in my last Offshore projects, along with project I got booted all the way to India where I had to manage my team and even the client tagged along for a while.
But regardless of the fact whether its offshore or onsite all software projects are doomed to fail if there is no proper management in place. You can have a thousand people bang on it, but if you dont have a client who takes an active role in resolving issues, and identifying most needed features, if you dont have a team who is inspired and is capable of being focussed, If you dont have a manager who can lead and still be part of the team, every project is doomed to fail in the first few months.
One of my buddies who work for Kraft, USA recently told me that their project was recently outsourced to a firm in Russia. Now understand that these guys had more than an year and more than a couple of million to implement a solution the customer needs. But the weasel manager(whom I would blame here) who couldnt keep his team together and his client satisfied, chose to drop ball midway and outsource the project. They had all the time and money in the world to finish this project on time and now there are a bunch of guys out of work.
I cringe whenever my Director mentions having an offshore team handy when we talk to our (potential)clients. I feel he is not focussing (enough) on the positives of using our organization as a technology partner, but rather using the offshore model as an economical reason to justify taking projects offshore.
Recently I had the (mis)fortune of having to explain to a potential client about the feasibility as well as our internal processes when it comes to an Offshore project. Communication, I told them, is the key whether its offshore or onsite. I didnt mention the monetary advantages since to me, they exist, but i dont give a damn. For my client, I aim to make the best possible system with the best resources I have at the current time. And whether its done Offshore or onsite, I still aim to do my best. In the case of Offshore, I have to be doubly sure and have to push harder to ensure that the timelines are kept and the channel for communication remains open.
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And you, God forbid!, who lives in a Capitalist community believes having a well paid job is a privilege???
should have been having a well paid job is a birth right???!!
Forgot to preview it, my bad!
Most of the comments I see here are from guys who feel its beneath them to go to a different country, work at a rate considerably less than what they "used" to get paid here and live out a satisfactory life. Nope, they want to live here, since they are used to their lifestyle here, live among the opulence of others (even when they dont have it), and grudge day in and day out about lost opportunities and how well the market seemed a few years ago. Sorry boss.. its true that you dont have that many options anymore, and yes, its true that corporate america has screwed you in the arse ultimately, and has chosen India as its new bed partner.
Think about this, all these software engg you see or hear about in India do not take for granted that their jobs will stay and hold for the rest of their lives. And you, God forbid!, who lives in a Capitalist community believes having a well paid job is a privilege??? I hate Corporate America, their lobbyists and the politicians who would jump in to bed with the lot if they could top their coffers, but at the same time I pity the arrogance of people who feel that its beneath them to get out of this country and look for better jobs, better wages and a better life elsewhere in the world. Yes, you might have to cut your ties for a while, you may have to sell or stash everything you got for a while, yes you might have to get new friends for a while, just imagine what you would lose out if you were to stay inside your little coccoon for the rest of your life, with out being exposed to the different people,cultures,life styles,sports out there that you didnt know about?
I have been in US for the last five years of my life and I have seen and experienced more than I could ever bargain for and I have been better off for the most. I found new friends, people who I would have otherwise never find, I found a life which was better in some ways that I could have back in India, and I found slashdot. So yes, I am better off, in my own ways.
So, get off that pedestal and start seeing the world with a whole different perspective. Learn that life and people exist outside your community. And while you are at it, get a job somewhere else in the world and find out why everyone else think American's (atleast some) are so oblivious to the rest of the world and what they think. Good luck!
Dont know how many here knows what happens behind the scenes when you rip any Disc (and if I am talking out of my ass, please correct me).
Every CSS encrypted disc contains the key, which when the DVD Player encounters encrypted content, looks for and finds to decrypt the content at runtime.
Now when we rip the DVD to make a copy (for piracy or for fair use), the tool uses the key to decrypt the media and dumps the decrypted media to our hard drive, but not the key. Then we go ahead and burn it to any standard DVD+/-R Disc. Understand that any standard DVD-R/DVD+R disc you buy from the store is similar to the DVD that came with the original movie, except for one - the part where the encrypted key will reside cannot be burned on to. Which means, if you were to try and make a One to One copy of the movie disc, you will be able to write the encrypted media on to the new Disc, but the DVD writer would not be able to write the key on to the new Disc, since that part is not writeable (dont know why, but thats how it is).
So essentially, we are not making a one to one copy of the movie. We decrypt the media and write the decrypted media on to the second disc and throws away the CSS key. Now our DVD Player finds decrypted media and has no need for a key, so merrily goes along and plays the content.
I am all for Fair Use, and I hate RIAA more than I hate MPAA (because of the prices). But when we rip a DVD for Fair use and claim that its a One to One copy, thats not necessarily true (or hold up in court) since they can always argue that the Key is not copied over as well as the media is decrypted as well. IANAL, but wouldnt that hold merit in the legal system?
Indian Ocean eh?
............
I presume these Indians had something to do with the massive extinction of US Tech jobs as well?
First the poor dinosaurs, and now poor US geeks..
And yes, I am Indian, the real deal, the kind Columbus went searching for..thankfully never found.
seems like his whole point is that "Where do you want to be when you are 30?. Would you like to be married to some good looking girl, drive a car, own a home in some fancy neighborhood".
Now, I dont need to answer him, merely look back on history for the last few hundred years. If everyone who ever lived had their sights set on that sort of goal, this world, this life that we live, these things that we see around us in our daily life, would not exist.
Everything that you see, around us, everything that we use in our life, everything that makes our lives a bit more easier, a lot more sane, are because of people who gave up that dream to have a home at 30 and living with a beautiful girl. And if it had not been for those few, we would never know our true potential.
Not everyone will achieve that dream of true greatness, thereby inspiring the rest of the world to be like them, but if we dont follow in the paths of people who inspired us, then what good we are, as fellow geeks, as fellow human beings.
I enjoyed them all, and towards the end of the trilogy felt like I was about to lose a good friend whom I knew for the last three years.
It was a great journey and it was completely overwhelming. Peter Jackson deserved every bit of praise he received.
Thanks for the ride. There will be none like it, atleast not for me!
anything about the engine used? Did they write it from scratch? The visuals look good, but not that great.
I say, give us something that captures the ambience of Doom III, with the gore and screams toned down.
This *reeks* of failure (no pun intended)
All of the above. And I been in US since the last six years.
:)
I am glad that finally geeks from my part of the world have had a chance to talk on Slashdot. I have always thought there would be a general disdain towards geeks from that side of the world, owing to various constraints such as culture/accent/life style etc. But thanks to Rob, I am glad to see that this community has finally realized that its no different from the people half way across the world.
I saw a thread about democratically elected communist govt. My state is one of them, its called Kerala and it is towards the southern most tip of India. Mostly literate citizens for whom politics, art/literature and food is probably the most important three facts of life. As it should be. I wouldnt dare call it a communist govt, more like a Socalist party.
I had a buddy of mine from good ole TX visit India with me an year ago and even work there with a team of programmers for over six months. It was quite a culture shock for this dude but he enjoyed every minute of it. And yes, Indo-chinese food can kick Chinese food's arse all over china! And please, North Indian food isnt all its made out to be. If you generally like to eat good food, try South Indian cuisine..thats where curry started...
I hope this Q&A gets posted right on top for a few weeks so that everyone here who thought (atleast for a while) that their counterparts in India were code monkeys and devil worshippers, ought to be proven wrong
to my counterpart in India. I hope he doesnt troll!
I see a lot of comments to the effect of "Why would you want to work in India for a lesser salary, since even if you save a ton, it wouldnt amount to anything when you move back to US"?
Well, those who do say such things dont take in to account the possibility that US currency may not amount to much 20-30 years from now. And possibly, just possibly, if China and India is indeed the future, who knows what you save might be a tidy enough sum for you to retire.
(1) Dont hate Indians. They are competing with you on the job market. However its still a US firm choosing them over you.
(2) If the Govt would only force US companies from using Cayman Islands as a Tax Haven, we would save in one year atleast tens of billions. And as far as I am concerned, thats more evil than Outsourcing.
(3) India will be more affected when the Outsourcing mania ends. It has currently three times the amount of programmers and all of them would not be able to find a job when the outsourcing bubble bursts.
(4) Outsourcing to India is just like Dotcom was to Silicon Valley. Both are bubbles which should burst
(5) As the author of the article mentioned, Indian firms has a fascination towards Quality Certifications. However this affinity to process could prove to be irritating to US firms who demand change.
(6) 90% of the team who worked for me from India quit and moved to a bigger firm since the last project. Which means the market is definitely in a state of flux. US firms will definitely note this trend and wont be pleased when key people leave without qualms in the middle of the project.
(7) Indians prefer job stability over anything else. Also, they tend to view Bigger firms as better employers and a better fit over smaller firms offering an environment to work on better projects.
Well, it is a regular sight on Indian roads and even though I hate it, there was hardly anything on the roads then that will withstand the road itself (or the lack of it!)
The car is so bad (my Dad still has one) that I heard when some foreign delegation came to visit they commented that the only thing on that Car which dont make a sound was probably the Horn!
And noise is another staple on Indian roads..we love to use our Horns till someone sticks it up our collective ass!
who are with me, and thinking along with me, Who the FSCK is this idiot and why should i give a damn about what HE and his shitty firm think about resumes?
Joel:Attention, the entire population of India: whenever you have a comma, there is always exactly one space and it's always after the comma and never before it.
Entire Population of India: Uhh..?.. Fuck you?!
This THING is enough to get any geek laid!!..
Just imagine walking in to a Club with this. Even if you have hardly an inch on your face with out a pimple, you will still get laid...
I got karma to spare so here goes..
Please, for the millionth time, anytime you see another article about India, dont go all mushy eyed about its billion residents going hungry to bed every night, the cruelties of its caste system, blah..blah and blah. These things will change as time moves forward. It wont be a revolution, more like a natural progression as the old habits die, and the old system dies along with it. The young people of this country are as progressive and liberal like the rest of their counterparts in other countries, and do not judge each other on the basis of color/creed nor caste. Cause, its just not cool to be a racist!
Now, if India were to focus just on feeding mouths, then it would lose out on all other fronts. Pakistan is more than just another threat, past has taught us more than just that. China is another grave threat that we are trying to turn in to a positive relationship. Sure every country has a good side as well as a dark side and I am sure India does its own share of black ops against its enemies, but they are less and too far in between.
India hasnt been so lucky in its neighbours like United States (except for poor Cuba), like Israel. Which is why, these two countries share a special relationship which persevered even through the cold wars, when relationships werent so perfect between India and United States.
Anyway, if the bureaucrats want to create a portal for the farmers of these godforsaken villages, why would you stop them in the name of feeding mouths? You want to stop all technological advancements just because everyone doesnt have enough to eat? If every country decided to do that, there would be no advancement at all, neither in the public, nor in the private front.
Dont be stupid! There will always be incompetent/stupid leadership if there are people to vote them in to power. To see an example, we only need to look inwards..(here..bushie..bushie..) If there are enough stupid people in this great country to vote a village idiot in to power, then are you going to blame them for voting in to power, corrupt politicians?
I asked him about the product, and he tells me the idea was way ahead of its time..
Way ahead my ass!..
Actually our experiences are not that much different.
While I was getting shitty quality from my offshore partner, I talked to one of my buddies from CA, whom I know for over 7 years and who ironically initiated me to a community called slashdot 4-5 years ago. I asked him to help, he currently works for a Fortune 100 and he, thank God, said he would.
And he is the only person responsible for turning this around. I brought him on, explained the system to him in less than an hour and we went ahead and designed the rest of the system, some of its parts were quite complex.
The offshore partner ranted and dragged their feet, complained they couldnt understand the design, did everything possible to not work, while myself and my buddy were putting in 18 hour days, trying to put together this system.
In the end, the offshore partner contributed less than 10% of their deliverables, while the rest was put together by this lone coder from CA.
So yes, Trust is a main issue. And it doesnt matter whether your Offshore partner is in Russia, Romania, India, Vietnam, China what not. Outsourcing needs to be thought through out from inception to transition. I wrote a paper for my firm elaborating on the weaknesses and strengths of this model, and Trust and Communication ranks high on whether this model will crumble or succeed in any project.
And please, dont even think that this will be a cookie cutter model that you can apply to any living/breathing project. If you do, then you WILL regret that decision a few months down the line. And by then it will be too late.
Think before you act, it worked in all other aspects of life. And it will work here.
Dude,
:). I have nothing against any race or any color. And yes, my ex-offshore partner was Indian as well, but that doesnt change the fact that they were incompetent.
I am as Indian as they get
I wasnt issuing a blanket statement about all Indian outsourcing firms. I am merely referring to the fact that most of the firms who indulge in outsourcing are plainly jumping on the bandwagon with nary a thought about its implications in the long run. And hence outsourcing isnt here to stay, it will blow over very soon when firms and managers realize that it makes more sense to have the team onsite rather than having someone do most of the work at night when you arent around to manage.
And if your offshore partner is a plain schmuck, like was mine, they will shaft you at every step possible, by overbilling you, by working on other projects in the hour they bill you. Believe me, I have been a witness to this and much more.
Trust me, I manage a project which is outsourced and currently employs 3 software engg offshore.
The pluses -
(1) Benefit in terms of costs. Well they bill us 30 bucks for a software developer where here I would assume it will be around 60.. Whoopee doo..
(2) The supposed 24 hour day where your team onsite would plug 12 straight hours and your offshore team would plug in another 12 hours, therefore giving the client the impression that his project was worked upon for 24 hours..
(3) Now that implementation is made seperate and outsourced, the client just needs to focus on the business aspect and the designm therefore having more time to themselves to focus on issues that need attention
Minuses
(1) Cost is not that much better. Quite soon, firms will try to up the prices and then you will lose the benefit in terms of cost
(2) The 24 hour Day - Its quite different from what you are led to believe. Mostly both teams would take a couple of hours everyday trying to understand what the other has done, interact and to a certain extent, also play the blame game.
(3) The client would find himself being pulled more often back in to the implementation and design, since his offshore partner cant understand the design or has a "better" design. Chaos ensues.
Mostly from my experiences, what makes all the difference is the people who are developing this offshore. If they are intelligent enough and has good communication abilities, then you have a success story. If what you have is a guy who did a 14 day java crash course and has one year experience in plugging java code in to Helloworld.java, then you have an absolute wreck waiting to happen. It happened to me, I had two stupid asses with whom I spent 3-4 hours every night trying to drill in, the architecture, the requirements, the implementation details. And then I would wake up in the morning and they would have probably coded 10 lines and sent two emails with questions which either are stupid or should have been asked the night before. So what you have is two asswipes who just billed you for 16 hours and turned out 10 lines of code, of which 9 you will probably rewrite and a bunch of questions which doesnt amount to nada.
I dont think that any firm who is currently doing outsourcing has thought about the actual implementation through and through. They are all given rosy pictures of intelligent professionals back home plugging away on their keyboards churning out code that works on the first try.
More so, in a few years, the real picture would come out where probably 10% outsourcing actually churned out something positive and the rest 90% lost money, less money in fact, on projects which had no direction, no able offshore partner and a bunch of developers who doesnt know the difference between a class and an object if it kicked them in the ass with it.
Sorry I just had to rant, since I spent a better part of my night trying to work with some idiots and two days ago I kicked them out of the project. And in a combined 300 hour period, they coded two classes, and the style of coding will make you puke.
I dont know which were the best ones..
But Gigli and Kangaroo Jack takes the cake for the worst ones..
I recently read somewhere (think it was cnet) that Microsoft was readying its trolls for one last rally against OSS. That they were getting ready to unleash another PR battle against OSS and point out that bugs/flaws take longer to fix in OSS than in MS world..
Well, I think it just takes the edge off when you know its coming.. And with MS, FUD is always flying around, sometimes they end up with s*it on their face.
Why dont they just shut up and make their software better.
Not that kind of purchasing power, but the super computing power rather..
According to this Wired article a small firm in CA called Clear Speed will soon revolutionize the PC space with Super computing power.
I know we will all believe it when we can find these chips on Bestbuy aisle no:4, but still currently from where I am sitting (I am sitting on a Microsoft biztalk server 2004 training session, boring as hell, being inundated by claims of innovation by a clueless trainer who programmed in Visual basic for her entire life), Clear speed is as close to Innovation that I can think of and its more of them that this industry/world need, and less of Microsoft.
Oh..lunch time.. gotta go hit on some free sandwiches. Viva la microsoft..
IMHO, and for someone who has been running Windows 2003 server beta on a dev workstation for the last 9 months, I been extremely happy with it.
I have got tons of tools/utils that could bring an XP box to its knees and outright destroy the damn thing. 2003 server has so far been gracefully handling the pressure with no blue screens till last week.
Last week, I came across from first core dump when I was playing around with the Cisco VPN tool and it core dumped (it was due to bad drivers, couldnt find native ones) giving a BAD_POOL_CALLER error a bunch of times.
I thought Xp was way decent than the shitty 98SE and the unbelievably piece of crap ME, but 2003 server has proved that theres a lot of room for improvement. I think they still have a long way to go to capture the server market.
Disclaimer : I have been running a server operating system on a workstation, I admit. Theres guides available to tune the OS to make it run as a workstation and for gaming.
Also, Microsoft has finally shipped an OS with most of its services disabled (including sound) rather than running in to a "gotcha" moment down the line.
First of all, I am going to try to write an unbiased opinion since I have managed both onsite as well as Offshore projects. Infact in my last Offshore projects, along with project I got booted all the way to India where I had to manage my team and even the client tagged along for a while.
But regardless of the fact whether its offshore or onsite all software projects are doomed to fail if there is no proper management in place. You can have a thousand people bang on it, but if you dont have a client who takes an active role in resolving issues, and identifying most needed features, if you dont have a team who is inspired and is capable of being focussed, If you dont have a manager who can lead and still be part of the team, every project is doomed to fail in the first few months.
One of my buddies who work for Kraft, USA recently told me that their project was recently outsourced to a firm in Russia. Now understand that these guys had more than an year and more than a couple of million to implement a solution the customer needs. But the weasel manager(whom I would blame here) who couldnt keep his team together and his client satisfied, chose to drop ball midway and outsource the project. They had all the time and money in the world to finish this project on time and now there are a bunch of guys out of work.
I cringe whenever my Director mentions having an offshore team handy when we talk to our (potential)clients. I feel he is not focussing (enough) on the positives of using our organization as a technology partner, but rather using the offshore model as an economical reason to justify taking projects offshore.
Recently I had the (mis)fortune of having to explain to a potential client about the feasibility as well as our internal processes when it comes to an Offshore project. Communication, I told them, is the key whether its offshore or onsite. I didnt mention the monetary advantages since to me, they exist, but i dont give a damn. For my client, I aim to make the best possible system with the best resources I have at the current time. And whether its done Offshore or onsite, I still aim to do my best. In the case of Offshore, I have to be doubly sure and have to push harder to ensure that the timelines are kept and the channel for communication remains open.