No-one has a right to a job, no-one owes anyone a living, Microsoft is not a charity.
If you'd RTFAs that were linked, you'd see that it is Microsoft that expects charity in the form of government sponsored research. It is also pressing to legalize the incredible inevitable disclosure doctrine which would make any MS employee a de facto indentured servant, unable to work for a different employer.
Sell the giant TV and that's a year's worth of food right there. Sell the gas-guzzling SUV and you've enough money to spend months, or years looking for a new job. Perhaps you don't really need that 6-bedroom house in Silicon Valley with a 10 acre garden, three garages and four bathrooms.
I don't have anywhere near that kind of stuff. You live in a fantasy world, but that's obvious from your comments.
If I were American I'd love it if other Americans' jobs were outsourced, would mean I would have relatively more money.
What if you're the person whose job is outsourced - how does that help you? And it doesn't help other Americans. Anyone who becomes a drain on the national economy brings the standard of living down for everyone else through higher taxes and a general reduction in economic activity.
It's just thinly-disguised racism.
I am so sick of people who can't make a rational defense of their argument, so they start screaming "racism". You conveniently ignored the rest of my comment where I pointed out that it doesn't matter which country the jobs go to. Perhaps you don't understand the difference between racism and nationalism?
Why pay $100k a year for a prima donna in Redmond when you can get the same work for $20k in India?
I can't speak about wages in Redmond, but why should Microsoft take the job of a person who helped build the company and ship it elsewhere? Is MS about to go out of business? Did they lose that $40 billion in the bank? Their income increased by a whopping 50% last year. How much of their success does MS owe to the Chinese? You globalist apologists are a constant source of amusement.
Perhaps they are'nt doing much local hiring because of the declining CS enrollment? How can you hire what isn't there? I'm no MS fan, but this post seems to miss the mark.
Microsoft added fewer than 3,000 employees last year worldwide. If they are really hurting for staff, why aren't they doing any campus recruiting any more - even when invited by the schools? Why do they hire only about 1% of US applicants? Engineering unemployment (including programmers) is still near historic highs, and you're claiming MS can't find local workers? The declining CS enrollment is a direct and normal marketplace response to an oversupply of US IT workers. When your programmer parent is out of a job, and American companies won't hire him/her, you pick a major other than CS.
The best of all is - the way he put it, it looks like while MS exports jobs, Google hires this PhD guy Lee to open a fucking kindergarten or something.
Or maybe you have a reading comprehension problem. Whatever Lee is doing for Google has nothing to do with the blurb or what Microsoft has been claiming. They have publicly bemoaned the number of CS gradutes and have been lobbying the feds to increase the H-1B cap, while in fact they aren't interested in hiring locally.
From this, we can see that Microsoft had an unbelievable 50% increase in income during the last year while headcount increased by less than 3,000. Since we know that MS is "growing the work force" in China by over 1,000 per year and an unknown but most likely similar number in India (and smaller numbers for other countries), that leaves little, nothing, or negative job growth for the US. It is also interesting that there is a quid pro quo with the Chinese based on jobs, which was certainly not public information. You can return to your astroturfing now, and that should be "an idiot".
This kind of protectionism keeps prices artificially high and shafts poorer countries.
Microsoft has 80% profit margins on software. Do you really believe that sending jobs offshore is going to lead to reduced prices? Dream on. They could reduce prices right now and still be wildly profitable.
When people from all over the world can write for Microsoft, it's a bad thing, because Americans should get all the jobs?
I don't follow. What's so special about Americans that they should get all the jobs? Doesn't sound like that's a very healthy situation.
How about because it is jobs currently being done by Americans (you know, the workers that made Microsoft the success it is) that are being identified and sent offshore in an apparent quid pro quo for Chinese cooperation.
What would be the repsonse if jobs were being outsourced to Britain or Australia?
What difference does it make where the jobs are going? It's still bad for American workers. What would the response be if British or Australian companies started dumping local employees and shipping their jobs to America? It probably wouldn't be too popular.
why is this significant again? Companies offshore all the time. Hell, some companies move their headquarters to different continents.
Perhaps it's significant because Microsoft is whining about declining CS enrollment and lobbying the government for an increase in the H-1B cap, when they really aren't doing much local hiring. It is significant because what they say for publication is a lie, and their real interest is solely in cheaper labor. It also seems significant that they are apparently buying Chinese cooperation in anti-piracy efforts with jobs that currently belong to American workers. It gives new meaning to the term human capital.
Of course, for each of these, there are 1000 sequels with nothing at all new. Can anyone think of any other games for this list? I am sure there are plenty more.
Soul Reaver, which was supposedly a sequel to Blood Omen (the original Kain game, whatever the title was).
BLS also says that due to growth and retirements there will be 431,000 open positions for engineers before 2012.
I'm sure the unemployed engineers will be delighted to learn they only have a few more years to wait - that is as long as employers don't bring in H-1Bs or L1s or offshore those jobs.
Nice three year old article to back up your argument.
My bad. After six years, they all look alike, since they all say the same thing.
"... do not expect to see a significant turnaround until 2004."
Well, it doesn't look like there was a turnaround. This uses more recent official figures from the BLS (you can download the BLS PDF yourself), and EE unemployment was still 5.3%. Unfortunately, the site is undergoing improvements, and I can't get to the article I want. The latest BLS figures (2nd quarter) show the number of employed EEs in 2004 less than that in 2003. Subsequent surveys I've seen show no improvement, but if you were really interested in the subject, you'd know that already. Anything else I can do for you?
We should seriously downsize NASA to free up as many engineers (especially young ones) as possible to do PRODUCTIVE work in the commercial and academic sectors.
Great idea. With unemployment for engineers still near all-time highs, let's dump some more on the market.
Certainly corruption and misreporting on a massive scale can be avoided entirely by "backing up" an electronic process with a paper trail - because paper based voting systems are infallible!
Corporate execs should be personally responsible for known bad practices followed for slightly financial gain on their watch, for instance - a sense of good practices would then be taken personally by those officers.
Some companies do hold their executives responsible. Carly got kicked out with nothing but $40 million, outplacement services, and a company-paid secretary. That'll teach her!
I merely pointed out that in my career I have been able, without any effort on my part, to circumvent any signature on ethics or code of conduct.
I'm not sure whether that's a loss for you or our educational institutions. If you don't consider joining a professional organization as "signing up", perhaps your major should have been law?
Whether I feel morally bound be these codes is a wholly different issue, an issue on which I have not expressed myself here.
Interesting, but as I said, I'm a member of both and have never signed them, nor has this ever been brought to my attention by the organizations.
Apparently, you didn't even know that either organization had a code of ethics (or certainly didn't find it important). Personally, I find a legal obligation less important than a moral obligation, but the terms of membership seem clear, IMHO.
In any case, this whole article/discussion has been a downer. People making comments like, "Good documented code is evil, and only n00bs will work on it," is depressing and proves that the term "Software Engineer" will remain a misnomer as long as these people are still coding. I'm *signing* off for the weekend.
I write code, and I heartily agree with you, but there is huge gap between reality and theory. Most of us get by doing what we can with the time and budget allotted, which doesn't always allow for absolutely rigorous testing of every single piece of the code.
That is not required by the rules of the IEEE-CS or the ACM. There are some handy links above provided by mmkkbb. If there are shortcuts taken, you have a responsibility to notify those involved about the risks. You take responsibility for your decisions. If that decision is made with the knowledge that it will damage the interests or safety of the public or the customer, then it is wrong. See? It's not that hard. The sticking point comes when you know something bad is going down. Will you escalate it as a professional should or accept it and become a code weasel, bringing even more justified disrespect for our craft when the bugs come home to roost? (Not you personally - programmers in general.)
I actually signed anything when becoming a member? I filled in a web form, no signature required. Where I come from that is not legally binding.
Times change, I suppose. It used to be that to join either organization, you not only had to sign an application, but you had to be sponsored by a member. I'm not going to submit a fake web application just to see what it says, but the pdf form still says:
I hereby make application for IEEE membership and agree to be governed by the IEEE Constitution, Bylaws and Code of Ethics. Application must be signed.
Emphasis NOT mine. No offense, but if you do not feel bound by the conditions of your membership, I respectfully request that you resign and leave the organization to those of us who agree to the rules. If you want, I'm sure I could get clarification on the conditions of *web membership* from the staff.
You signed the membership applications without reading them? By signing, you agreed to abide by and support their code of ethics. I'm surprised you made it through school without ethics training. My university had a portion of a course devoted to professional ethics, both in EE and CS. I guess different schools have different priorities and expectations.
Hmm, funny, I'm a member of both ACM and IEEE, hold a masters in CS and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, and I don't recall ever signing any ethics agreement.
Tsk, tsk. Looks like the ethics training didn't take, eh? Time for a refresher?:)
If you write for consumers, as in the corporate world, then the emphasis has to be on speed and getting the code out there. Otherwise you lose potential customers and mindshare, all of which is vitally important to a company.
Reasoning like that put us in the fix we're in today, where the predominant OS is a buggy breeding ground for malware and people have been trained to think computer crashes are normal. Anyone with a CS or engineering degree probably signed a professional ethics agreement at some point during their education. Anyone who belongs to the IEEE or ACM definitely did. The people who write code used by others have a lot more professional responsibility than just "getting the code out there," and it's past time they started remembering it.
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No-one has a right to a job, no-one owes anyone a living, Microsoft is not a charity.
If you'd RTFAs that were linked, you'd see that it is Microsoft that expects charity in the form of government sponsored research. It is also pressing to legalize the incredible inevitable disclosure doctrine which would make any MS employee a de facto indentured servant, unable to work for a different employer.
Sell the giant TV and that's a year's worth of food right there. Sell the gas-guzzling SUV and you've enough money to spend months, or years looking for a new job. Perhaps you don't really need that 6-bedroom house in Silicon Valley with a 10 acre garden, three garages and four bathrooms.
I don't have anywhere near that kind of stuff. You live in a fantasy world, but that's obvious from your comments.
If I were American I'd love it if other Americans' jobs were outsourced, would mean I would have relatively more money.
What if you're the person whose job is outsourced - how does that help you? And it doesn't help other Americans. Anyone who becomes a drain on the national economy brings the standard of living down for everyone else through higher taxes and a general reduction in economic activity.
It's just thinly-disguised racism.
I am so sick of people who can't make a rational defense of their argument, so they start screaming "racism". You conveniently ignored the rest of my comment where I pointed out that it doesn't matter which country the jobs go to. Perhaps you don't understand the difference between racism and nationalism?
Why pay $100k a year for a prima donna in Redmond when you can get the same work for $20k in India?
I can't speak about wages in Redmond, but why should Microsoft take the job of a person who helped build the company and ship it elsewhere? Is MS about to go out of business? Did they lose that $40 billion in the bank? Their income increased by a whopping 50% last year. How much of their success does MS owe to the Chinese? You globalist apologists are a constant source of amusement.
Perhaps they are'nt doing much local hiring because of the declining CS enrollment? How can you hire what isn't there? I'm no MS fan, but this post seems to miss the mark.
Microsoft added fewer than 3,000 employees last year worldwide. If they are really hurting for staff, why aren't they doing any campus recruiting any more - even when invited by the schools? Why do they hire only about 1% of US applicants? Engineering unemployment (including programmers) is still near historic highs, and you're claiming MS can't find local workers? The declining CS enrollment is a direct and normal marketplace response to an oversupply of US IT workers. When your programmer parent is out of a job, and American companies won't hire him/her, you pick a major other than CS.
The best of all is - the way he put it, it looks like while MS exports jobs, Google hires this PhD guy Lee to open a fucking kindergarten or something.
Or maybe you have a reading comprehension problem. Whatever Lee is doing for Google has nothing to do with the blurb or what Microsoft has been claiming. They have publicly bemoaned the number of CS gradutes and have been lobbying the feds to increase the H-1B cap, while in fact they aren't interested in hiring locally.
From this, we can see that Microsoft had an unbelievable 50% increase in income during the last year while headcount increased by less than 3,000. Since we know that MS is "growing the work force" in China by over 1,000 per year and an unknown but most likely similar number in India (and smaller numbers for other countries), that leaves little, nothing, or negative job growth for the US. It is also interesting that there is a quid pro quo with the Chinese based on jobs, which was certainly not public information. You can return to your astroturfing now, and that should be "an idiot".
This kind of protectionism keeps prices artificially high and shafts poorer countries.
Microsoft has 80% profit margins on software. Do you really believe that sending jobs offshore is going to lead to reduced prices? Dream on. They could reduce prices right now and still be wildly profitable.
When people from all over the world can write for Microsoft, it's a bad thing, because Americans should get all the jobs?
I don't follow. What's so special about Americans that they should get all the jobs? Doesn't sound like that's a very healthy situation.
How about because it is jobs currently being done by Americans (you know, the workers that made Microsoft the success it is) that are being identified and sent offshore in an apparent quid pro quo for Chinese cooperation.
What would be the repsonse if jobs were being outsourced to Britain or Australia?
What difference does it make where the jobs are going? It's still bad for American workers. What would the response be if British or Australian companies started dumping local employees and shipping their jobs to America? It probably wouldn't be too popular.
why is this significant again? Companies offshore all the time. Hell, some companies move their headquarters to different continents.
Perhaps it's significant because Microsoft is whining about declining CS enrollment and lobbying the government for an increase in the H-1B cap, when they really aren't doing much local hiring. It is significant because what they say for publication is a lie, and their real interest is solely in cheaper labor. It also seems significant that they are apparently buying Chinese cooperation in anti-piracy efforts with jobs that currently belong to American workers. It gives new meaning to the term human capital.
Of course, for each of these, there are 1000 sequels with nothing at all new. Can anyone think of any other games for this list? I am sure there are plenty more.
Soul Reaver, which was supposedly a sequel to Blood Omen (the original Kain game, whatever the title was).
they found him guilty BECAUSE the video game wasnt to blame, so what are they suing for?
Two reasons. First, money. Second, so they don't have to admit they are lousy parents - it's the game's fault, not theirs.
BLS also says that due to growth and retirements there will be 431,000 open positions for engineers before 2012.
I'm sure the unemployed engineers will be delighted to learn they only have a few more years to wait - that is as long as employers don't bring in H-1Bs or L1s or offshore those jobs.
Nice three year old article to back up your argument.
My bad. After six years, they all look alike, since they all say the same thing.
" ... do not expect to see a significant turnaround until 2004."
Well, it doesn't look like there was a turnaround. This uses more recent official figures from the BLS (you can download the BLS PDF yourself), and EE unemployment was still 5.3%. Unfortunately, the site is undergoing improvements, and I can't get to the article I want. The latest BLS figures (2nd quarter) show the number of employed EEs in 2004 less than that in 2003. Subsequent surveys I've seen show no improvement, but if you were really interested in the subject, you'd know that already. Anything else I can do for you?
We should seriously downsize NASA to free up as many engineers (especially young ones) as possible to do PRODUCTIVE work in the commercial and academic sectors.
Great idea. With unemployment for engineers still near all-time highs, let's dump some more on the market.
Do they run Linux on this toaster?
You have to install it yourself. It comes with Windows preloaded.
Certainly corruption and misreporting on a massive scale can be avoided entirely by "backing up" an electronic process with a paper trail - because paper based voting systems are infallible!
Just ask anyone from Florida.
At least paper ballots never return a negative number.
Corporate execs should be personally responsible for known bad practices followed for slightly financial gain on their watch, for instance - a sense of good practices would then be taken personally by those officers.
Some companies do hold their executives responsible. Carly got kicked out with nothing but $40 million, outplacement services, and a company-paid secretary. That'll teach her!
Show me where you can find a single MS product that is for sale under the project name it was serviced under within the walls of MS.
Bob? Well, I guess it's not for sale . . .
I think we should let Lex Luthor out and let him finish his little West Coast landscaping job.
Additionally, Windows will now take 11 days to install.
Well, that's 10 days less of being a nuisance on the internet.
I say, strip them down to the underpants and scrub them with some steel wool and Jif!
Scrub 'em with steel wool and peanut butter? Does that have something to do with the new food pyramid?
Now, I am not saying that Operating Systems are like religions. They aren't.
Heathen!
I merely pointed out that in my career I have been able, without any effort on my part, to circumvent any signature on ethics or code of conduct.
I'm not sure whether that's a loss for you or our educational institutions. If you don't consider joining a professional organization as "signing up", perhaps your major should have been law?
Whether I feel morally bound be these codes is a wholly different issue, an issue on which I have not expressed myself here.
Apparently, you didn't even know that either organization had a code of ethics (or certainly didn't find it important). Personally, I find a legal obligation less important than a moral obligation, but the terms of membership seem clear, IMHO.
In any case, this whole article/discussion has been a downer. People making comments like, "Good documented code is evil, and only n00bs will work on it," is depressing and proves that the term "Software Engineer" will remain a misnomer as long as these people are still coding. I'm *signing* off for the weekend.
I write code, and I heartily agree with you, but there is huge gap between reality and theory. Most of us get by doing what we can with the time and budget allotted, which doesn't always allow for absolutely rigorous testing of every single piece of the code.
That is not required by the rules of the IEEE-CS or the ACM. There are some handy links above provided by mmkkbb. If there are shortcuts taken, you have a responsibility to notify those involved about the risks. You take responsibility for your decisions. If that decision is made with the knowledge that it will damage the interests or safety of the public or the customer, then it is wrong. See? It's not that hard. The sticking point comes when you know something bad is going down. Will you escalate it as a professional should or accept it and become a code weasel, bringing even more justified disrespect for our craft when the bugs come home to roost? (Not you personally - programmers in general.)
I actually signed anything when becoming a member? I filled in a web form, no signature required. Where I come from that is not legally binding.
Times change, I suppose. It used to be that to join either organization, you not only had to sign an application, but you had to be sponsored by a member. I'm not going to submit a fake web application just to see what it says, but the pdf form still says:
Emphasis NOT mine. No offense, but if you do not feel bound by the conditions of your membership, I respectfully request that you resign and leave the organization to those of us who agree to the rules. If you want, I'm sure I could get clarification on the conditions of *web membership* from the staff.You signed the membership applications without reading them? By signing, you agreed to abide by and support their code of ethics. I'm surprised you made it through school without ethics training. My university had a portion of a course devoted to professional ethics, both in EE and CS. I guess different schools have different priorities and expectations.
Hmm, funny, I'm a member of both ACM and IEEE, hold a masters in CS and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, and I don't recall ever signing any ethics agreement.
Tsk, tsk. Looks like the ethics training didn't take, eh? Time for a refresher? :)
If you write for consumers, as in the corporate world, then the emphasis has to be on speed and getting the code out there. Otherwise you lose potential customers and mindshare, all of which is vitally important to a company.
Reasoning like that put us in the fix we're in today, where the predominant OS is a buggy breeding ground for malware and people have been trained to think computer crashes are normal. Anyone with a CS or engineering degree probably signed a professional ethics agreement at some point during their education. Anyone who belongs to the IEEE or ACM definitely did. The people who write code used by others have a lot more professional responsibility than just "getting the code out there," and it's past time they started remembering it.