We have just recently discovered some of the pitfalls of this in the division of the company I work for. We outsourced the coding of a new embedded product to an overseas company who were skilled in this particular type of product.
Some of the problems we found with doing this were:
It took much longer (they actually stopped working on this product as they wen't well over budget and demanded more money from us to complete it (And no, I have no idea why the contract we had with them allowed this to happen))
In the interests of time much of their code was ported to C from the ASM of one of ou existing products which meant existing bad practices etc were carried over.
We had to send a couple of our guys over there to try to learn how to use some of the development tools they had used so that we can support the product.
They decided to use a development tool which was very expensive and therefore only one was purchased (meaning we couldn't both work on the product at the same time)
Their test plan and cases left a LOT to be desired, they basicly only tested the couple new features they had included and didn't even intend to fully system test the product.
This is just one experience we have had tho and I am sure it would be different for each case... the one thing I can say tho is make sure you have VERY good requirement specs (right down to every trivial little detail) and also a good legal contract with the company (make sure they can't just suddenly decide their going over budget and won't do any more work until you give them more money)
I find juggling to be a great help... it takes your mind off the problem, and gets both halves of the brain working again. Some of our developers at work have setup a fish tank and a large punching bag to help with their stress/blocks. Still, there is no substitute for fresh air and sunshine.. going for a walk, swim bike ride etc doesn't just improve your physical fitness. As someone else stated, flicking through a couple programming books (even on just the basics that you are sure you already know) can also help.
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We have just recently discovered some of the pitfalls of this in the division of the company I work for. We outsourced the coding of a new embedded product to an overseas company who were skilled in this particular type of product. Some of the problems we found with doing this were: It took much longer (they actually stopped working on this product as they wen't well over budget and demanded more money from us to complete it (And no, I have no idea why the contract we had with them allowed this to happen)) In the interests of time much of their code was ported to C from the ASM of one of ou existing products which meant existing bad practices etc were carried over. We had to send a couple of our guys over there to try to learn how to use some of the development tools they had used so that we can support the product. They decided to use a development tool which was very expensive and therefore only one was purchased (meaning we couldn't both work on the product at the same time) Their test plan and cases left a LOT to be desired, they basicly only tested the couple new features they had included and didn't even intend to fully system test the product. This is just one experience we have had tho and I am sure it would be different for each case... the one thing I can say tho is make sure you have VERY good requirement specs (right down to every trivial little detail) and also a good legal contract with the company (make sure they can't just suddenly decide their going over budget and won't do any more work until you give them more money)
I find juggling to be a great help... it takes your mind off the problem, and gets both halves of the brain working again. Some of our developers at work have setup a fish tank and a large punching bag to help with their stress/blocks. Still, there is no substitute for fresh air and sunshine.. going for a walk, swim bike ride etc doesn't just improve your physical fitness. As someone else stated, flicking through a couple programming books (even on just the basics that you are sure you already know) can also help.