Well, of course, that's because the Bush administration is in the pockets of the pharma (and oil) industries in the main. The software industry offshores because it can, the drug companies keep higher prices because they own the White House. What's good for one corporate is not necessarily good for the other, hence the different rules.
People change skills.
I think you mean 'people lose skills'. Lower-level skills are currently being offshored, there is a reduction in the 'apprenticeship' phase that the software industry needs. This process gradually moves up the ladder and eventually the whole industry moves offshore.
This has happened with manufacturing but it had the difference that manufacturing could be automated - it didn't require an apprenticeship. Software is not manufactured automtically and hence de-skilling of the West is taking place.
Your company is deliberately employing two people to employ one in India? How long are you going to last I wonder. What's the ticker name (just in case I have any shares...)
This sort of asinine logic really gets up my nose. Software development is still a sort of craft, code is not (yet) churned out like burgers or chocolate bars. So some sort of apprenticeship is still required if you are to have any expertise in the field. Anyone who claims that learning UML (or whatever) now provides you with the tools magically to produce quality designed systems (from which resultant quality software is generated) is talking out of their backside.
If you are to check the quality of code produced offshore (back in the West say), you have to do some form of code walkthrough, never mind re-testing. Testing and performance checks alone are not sufficient to determine code quality (what if a bug occurs and the code is obscure?). If all the code checks, design checks, testing cycles and documentation is outsourced, what are you left with, apart from some (relatively) simple management tasks such as project tracking?
But how are even these management tasks to be properly carried out if you don't understand the software development cycle (as your PM has little contact with software people)?
I read somewhere recently that 160,000 IT jobs had been created in the US last year - but there was no net increase in US software expertise because an equivalent number of jobs had been outsourced. The same is beginning to happen in the UK (although not quite as bad as the US, despite our govt's efforts otherwise). The number of students taking IT exams in the UK has dropped significantly, which is usually a pointer to where the money now is (ie,not in software).
As software people age, they tend to drop out of direct involvement with software (some become managers) whilst the new intake is shrinking. In other words, the apprenticehip is moving offshore. In 20 years, there will be very little expertise left in the West, the corporates will have moved the bulk of their operations to where the expertise lives. And I venture to judge that software will still not be automatically generated. We'll be left flipping burgers for the new class of Asian tourist (of which I see a lot more in London these days), who've come 'to see history'.
But it's better fun using the 'un-phonetic' alphabet, which goes something like:
C as in Church
E as in Eye
G as in George
I as in Itch
L as in Llanfairpwll..blah..gogogoch
M as in Mnemonic
P as in Psychologist
T as in The
X as in Ten
All you get are a couple of questions? Sheesh, as from September, we (the US' supposedly best allies) have to supply fingerprints and have them checked on every flight, whether arriving, flying internally and when escaping the US. And we will be expected to turn up at check-in five (!) hours before the flight, get asked a random set of questions (mother's maiden name, favourite pub, whatever) which then have to be answered exactly the same way when landing in the US.
But before this particular regime starts, mistakes have already begun. A British man travelling with his American wife to visit her very sick mother in LA was flagged as not having officially left the country in 1996. He was put in shackles, denied food or drink and, being foreign, allowed a phone call only to the consulate who cannot help. He was shipped back to the UK about a day later. It's why I now refuse to visit the US (even tho' my mother lives in Florida). I don't like being treated like a bug.
What's stopping spammers setting up a whole bunch of their own RPOW servers? They use these and zombied machines get their tokens from RPOW servers in Vanuatu or wherever. What's been solved?
The Beeb is not paid for by the taxpayer, its paid for by anybody who watches BBC TV. If you can prove you can only get Sky TV, for example, you do not need to pay the license fee.
And I would happily pay a lot more myself for the sheer privilege of not having to watch unimaginative and asinine adverts for shampoo, cruddy cars, junk food and stain removers repeated every half hour, every night/day, every week, every month, every year, every decade... (no, I don't watch a lot of TV, but I recognise products that were being advertised the same way 20 years ago).
Yep, reminds me of the argument Fox News used to 'prove' the BBC was anti-American. 'We did a Google search with: BBC anti American,' they said, 'and it came back with 44702 hits. That proves it!'
I wrote to Fox stating that I had entered 'BBC not anti American' and Google came back with... 44702 hits. No reply, of course. Nuff said.
We have to use it. We develop Java 'shrink-wrapped' apps that use the db of the corporation. This is usually Oracle, MSSQL or DB2.
At the same time, these corporates also have their own reporting tools (Business Objects etc.) and I don't want to have to duplicate logic in code and in the reporting tool. SPs are important in this respect.
I'm absolutely sure we're not the only guys who need 'portability'.
A tough problem from which I also suffered. I estimated that with a team of about 20, it would take over a year to do the sort of stuff I took for granted in Europe and the US.
It required a much higher level of monitoring and mentoring, including a lot of code reviewing to inch forward. The members of the team were willing but were generally surprised at the level of quality I demanded (which was not drmatically high) and the way I made them go back and redo stuff. I used all the tools possible to measure developer and code quality, test coverage (Maven etc.etc.) just to keep an eye on the whole process.
It was quite exhausting and now that I have left, I doubt whether these procedures will be followed much longer...
Same experience here. I even worked in India for several months. I estimated that the 3 months I was given would actually need 15 months mainly because the level of common-sense programming, problem solving abilities and so on, required constant mentoring and monitoring. The level of management effort required was also much higher.
Trying to get locals who could do the mentoring/management job was almost impossible. I suspect the IT market is still too young in India.
Indian IT wage inflation is currently running at 30% or more. At this rate, in 3 years (or less) the software development cost difference India-v-Europe/US will have virtually disappeared. This won't, however, stop your acountants outsourcing to Ghana or Vietnam, no matter how poor the quality of software delivery...
I've just come back from some months setting up an outsource dept. in India. Virtually anyone driving a car is an employed driver with the boss in the back. Hardly anyone owns a laptop, there's no WiFi, the mobile networks are erratic. With IT wage inflation running at 30%/year, in 3 years, they will no longer be competitive (but that won't stop your accountants outsourcing to Ghana or Easter Island if they think it saves money...)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, of course, that's because the Bush administration is in the pockets of the pharma (and oil) industries in the main. The software industry offshores because it can, the drug companies keep higher prices because they own the White House. What's good for one corporate is not necessarily good for the other, hence the different rules.
Corporate rule uk (and us).
People change skills.
I think you mean 'people lose skills'. Lower-level skills are currently being offshored, there is a reduction in the 'apprenticeship' phase that the software industry needs. This process gradually moves up the ladder and eventually the whole industry moves offshore.
This has happened with manufacturing but it had the difference that manufacturing could be automated - it didn't require an apprenticeship. Software is not manufactured automtically and hence de-skilling of the West is taking place.
Your company is deliberately employing two people to employ one in India? How long are you going to last I wonder. What's the ticker name (just in case I have any shares...)
This sort of asinine logic really gets up my nose. Software development is still a sort of craft, code is not (yet) churned out like burgers or chocolate bars. So some sort of apprenticeship is still required if you are to have any expertise in the field. Anyone who claims that learning UML (or whatever) now provides you with the tools magically to produce quality designed systems (from which resultant quality software is generated) is talking out of their backside.
If you are to check the quality of code produced offshore (back in the West say), you have to do some form of code walkthrough, never mind re-testing. Testing and performance checks alone are not sufficient to determine code quality (what if a bug occurs and the code is obscure?). If all the code checks, design checks, testing cycles and documentation is outsourced, what are you left with, apart from some (relatively) simple management tasks such as project tracking?
But how are even these management tasks to be properly carried out if you don't understand the software development cycle (as your PM has little contact with software people)?
I read somewhere recently that 160,000 IT jobs had been created in the US last year - but there was no net increase in US software expertise because an equivalent number of jobs had been outsourced. The same is beginning to happen in the UK (although not quite as bad as the US, despite our govt's efforts otherwise). The number of students taking IT exams in the UK has dropped significantly, which is usually a pointer to where the money now is (ie,not in software).
As software people age, they tend to drop out of direct involvement with software (some become managers) whilst the new intake is shrinking. In other words, the apprenticehip is moving offshore. In 20 years, there will be very little expertise left in the West, the corporates will have moved the bulk of their operations to where the expertise lives. And I venture to judge that software will still not be automatically generated. We'll be left flipping burgers for the new class of Asian tourist (of which I see a lot more in London these days), who've come 'to see history'.
But it's better fun using the 'un-phonetic' alphabet, which goes something like:
...you get the idea...
C as in Church
E as in Eye
G as in George
I as in Itch
L as in Llanfairpwll..blah..gogogoch
M as in Mnemonic
P as in Psychologist
T as in The
X as in Ten
All you get are a couple of questions? Sheesh, as from September, we (the US' supposedly best allies) have to supply fingerprints and have them checked on every flight, whether arriving, flying internally and when escaping the US. And we will be expected to turn up at check-in five (!) hours before the flight, get asked a random set of questions (mother's maiden name, favourite pub, whatever) which then have to be answered exactly the same way when landing in the US.
But before this particular regime starts, mistakes have already begun. A British man travelling with his American wife to visit her very sick mother in LA was flagged as not having officially left the country in 1996. He was put in shackles, denied food or drink and, being foreign, allowed a phone call only to the consulate who cannot help. He was shipped back to the UK about a day later. It's why I now refuse to visit the US (even tho' my mother lives in Florida). I don't like being treated like a bug.
Aha! You must be one of those soldiers at Abu Ghraib...
What's stopping spammers setting up a whole bunch of their own RPOW servers? They use these and zombied machines get their tokens from RPOW servers in Vanuatu or wherever. What's been solved?
At the bottom of their page it states:
By 2010 Newham will be a place where people choose to live and work
Well maybe not now...
The International Management Centre in Sophia Antipolis, if that's the building...
The Beeb is not paid for by the taxpayer, its paid for by anybody who watches BBC TV. If you can prove you can only get Sky TV, for example, you do not need to pay the license fee.
And I would happily pay a lot more myself for the sheer privilege of not having to watch unimaginative and asinine adverts for shampoo, cruddy cars, junk food and stain removers repeated every half hour, every night/day, every week, every month, every year, every decade... (no, I don't watch a lot of TV, but I recognise products that were being advertised the same way 20 years ago).
Some people have a great problem just with English so no doubt adding Polish might ruin things for them...
Yep, reminds me of the argument Fox News used to 'prove' the BBC was anti-American. 'We did a Google search with: BBC anti American,' they said, 'and it came back with 44702 hits. That proves it!'
... 44702 hits. No reply, of course. Nuff said.
I wrote to Fox stating that I had entered 'BBC not anti American' and Google came back with
We have to use it. We develop Java 'shrink-wrapped' apps that use the db of the corporation. This is usually Oracle, MSSQL or DB2. At the same time, these corporates also have their own reporting tools (Business Objects etc.) and I don't want to have to duplicate logic in code and in the reporting tool. SPs are important in this respect. I'm absolutely sure we're not the only guys who need 'portability'.
A tough problem from which I also suffered. I estimated that with a team of about 20, it would take over a year to do the sort of stuff I took for granted in Europe and the US. It required a much higher level of monitoring and mentoring, including a lot of code reviewing to inch forward. The members of the team were willing but were generally surprised at the level of quality I demanded (which was not drmatically high) and the way I made them go back and redo stuff. I used all the tools possible to measure developer and code quality, test coverage (Maven etc.etc.) just to keep an eye on the whole process. It was quite exhausting and now that I have left, I doubt whether these procedures will be followed much longer...
Same problem in Europe...
Same experience here. I even worked in India for several months. I estimated that the 3 months I was given would actually need 15 months mainly because the level of common-sense programming, problem solving abilities and so on, required constant mentoring and monitoring. The level of management effort required was also much higher. Trying to get locals who could do the mentoring/management job was almost impossible. I suspect the IT market is still too young in India.
Indian IT wage inflation is currently running at 30% or more. At this rate, in 3 years (or less) the software development cost difference India-v-Europe/US will have virtually disappeared. This won't, however, stop your acountants outsourcing to Ghana or Vietnam, no matter how poor the quality of software delivery...
I've just come back from some months setting up an outsource dept. in India. Virtually anyone driving a car is an employed driver with the boss in the back. Hardly anyone owns a laptop, there's no WiFi, the mobile networks are erratic. With IT wage inflation running at 30%/year, in 3 years, they will no longer be competitive (but that won't stop your accountants outsourcing to Ghana or Easter Island if they think it saves money...)