On offshore outsourcing
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Frankly, I continue to be amazed that so many bright young people continue to be drawn into the computer industry. Computer programming has been virtually a blue collar profession since the mid-90s and that is not going to change. If I were starting over again I would be developing skills in the bio-technology fields. We are on the verge of having technologies that allow us to create life forms that can revolutionize virtually every aspect of our lives and those are going to be far more significant going into the future than the high tech of the 20th century. Combining bio-technology with programming and fields such as architecture will be an unbeatable skill set going into the next several decades. The important thing is to not fall prey to socialist ideologies that blame our problems on the economic elites. We must maintain the most investment friendly economy in the world. Every penny I have earned since the mid-80's has come from rich folks trying to find some place to invest their wealth. That is a good thing and should be encouraged with low taxes and small government. We must also remain a friendly place for the best and the brightest of the world to migrate to. That strips competitive economies of their talent and brings them here. In such an environment, the most advanced and lucretive technologies of the future will remain here with us.
The only conspiracies that concern me are the ones I am completely unaware of. By the time I find out about it, its probably a done deal. Nothing in the entire universe is more useless than morality without authority. A morality free of hypocrisy is no morality at all. Freedom is not something you express with your genitals, it is something you express with your mind.
modified on Friday, December 21, 2007 5:18:33 PM
Stan Shannon wrote:
Combining bio-technology with programming and fields such as architecture will be an unbeatable skill set going into the next several decades.
Sage advice and a fact that has been true since the advent of symbolic programming (I bet ther's 5 of us here who understand this reference). It has long been an absolute fact that the highest income levels for programming talent has been secured by folks who combine a solid knowledge of an industry with their programming skills. The best interview statement is, "I'm a proefssional in the xxxxxx industry and the skill I bring to the table is systems design and programming". Today's outsourcing environment really only eliminates the jobs on the lower end of the scale, out sourced work is typically the work sneered at by subject matter experts. This isn't true for technical systems development, technical utilities or technical systems, but remains true for work that requires real business knowledge over and above the technical.
Mike The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.
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Well, that is a bit of an exaggeration, at least in my experience. I have met a number of my companies Indian employees, as well as some from the eastern European LCCs, and would not say they were victimized, but rather had rather good incomes for their part of the world. Frankly, most companies are forced to compensate at reasonable levels (for the region) due to the high level of competition. Retention and attraction of skilled people is challenging there as well. Outsourced manufacturing is likely different, and perhaps more closely fits your description, but Software development and maintenance is not a subsistense wage business anywhere (although it could become that in the US in a few decades...)
Rob Graham wrote:
rather had rather good incomes for their part of the world
We are in agreement, as far as I can tell - your company's employees live very well indeed because the basis of the country's economy is slavery. They live in nice apartments because the building were built by labor battalions; they wear nice clothes (as do we in this country) because women and children work ten to twelve hours a day seven days a week, hunched over sewing machines. They eat well and spend little for their food because it is farmed by migrants who work the same hours as their industrial counterparts, but who can only find work six months of the year. The North tolerated slavery in the South in this country as long as it benefitted the upper class economically. Now the U.S. tolerates asian slavery because it benefits the upper management of multi-nationals.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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Frankly, I continue to be amazed that so many bright young people continue to be drawn into the computer industry. Computer programming has been virtually a blue collar profession since the mid-90s and that is not going to change. If I were starting over again I would be developing skills in the bio-technology fields. We are on the verge of having technologies that allow us to create life forms that can revolutionize virtually every aspect of our lives and those are going to be far more significant going into the future than the high tech of the 20th century. Combining bio-technology with programming and fields such as architecture will be an unbeatable skill set going into the next several decades. The important thing is to not fall prey to socialist ideologies that blame our problems on the economic elites. We must maintain the most investment friendly economy in the world. Every penny I have earned since the mid-80's has come from rich folks trying to find some place to invest their wealth. That is a good thing and should be encouraged with low taxes and small government. We must also remain a friendly place for the best and the brightest of the world to migrate to. That strips competitive economies of their talent and brings them here. In such an environment, the most advanced and lucretive technologies of the future will remain here with us.
The only conspiracies that concern me are the ones I am completely unaware of. By the time I find out about it, its probably a done deal. Nothing in the entire universe is more useless than morality without authority. A morality free of hypocrisy is no morality at all. Freedom is not something you express with your genitals, it is something you express with your mind.
modified on Friday, December 21, 2007 5:18:33 PM
I don't totally agree. I think that even R&D in biotechnology can be exported. E.g.: agriculture in Brazil and Argentina is already more productive than in developed countries mostly because of our R&D in biotechnology. Without subsidies farming in Europe, Japan and US would be extinct. As the article partially explains, the "comparative advantage" of rich countries lies in other area: marketing. What China, India and us (Brazil) have been doing is what Japan did for manufacturing in the 70's and 80's: produce cheaper (or better) what already exists. What the rich countries (not only the US but also Europe) know better is to invent and create markets that didn't exist before. E.g.: the whole IT industry (mostly the US), the mobile phone industry (mostly by Europeans), the industries of luxury goods (like Italian design, French fashion, German sport cars, etc). The careers I'd recommend for you would be marketing and finance.
Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.
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I don't totally agree. I think that even R&D in biotechnology can be exported. E.g.: agriculture in Brazil and Argentina is already more productive than in developed countries mostly because of our R&D in biotechnology. Without subsidies farming in Europe, Japan and US would be extinct. As the article partially explains, the "comparative advantage" of rich countries lies in other area: marketing. What China, India and us (Brazil) have been doing is what Japan did for manufacturing in the 70's and 80's: produce cheaper (or better) what already exists. What the rich countries (not only the US but also Europe) know better is to invent and create markets that didn't exist before. E.g.: the whole IT industry (mostly the US), the mobile phone industry (mostly by Europeans), the industries of luxury goods (like Italian design, French fashion, German sport cars, etc). The careers I'd recommend for you would be marketing and finance.
Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.
Diego Moita wrote:
Without subsidies farming in Europe, Japan and US would be extinct.
That might be true for some limited cases - sugar cane is one - but most of the crops grown in the US would continue to be profitable even without subsidies. I suspect this is more true for both Europe and Japan, particularly for Japan, where the high cost of land adds to their problems.
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I think the analysis is frighteningly accurate. I work for a large U.S. rooted multi-national, and it has for some time been policy and practice to move as much IT & related work to "Low Cost Countries" including India and China. No US based operations are growing, most have shrunk noticeably within the past five years as more and more work has moved. I'm just glad I'm near the end of my career rather than at the beginning. If I were just starting, i would seriously consider changing my occupation to health services or bricklaying, both of which look to remain in high demand for some time to come (for reasons well revealed in your post). Sadly, even those occupations will suffer from erosion to the real value of their wages. The world is moving toward economic maximum entropy...
Rob Graham wrote:
IT & related work to "Low Cost Countries" including India and China.
And yet it seems they come onto CP wanting help for problems they can't solve.
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
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Rob Graham wrote:
IT & related work to "Low Cost Countries" including India and China.
And yet it seems they come onto CP wanting help for problems they can't solve.
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
Paul Conrad wrote:
it seems they come onto CP wanting help for problems they can't solve.
I think that's how most of us got here initially...
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Paul Conrad wrote:
it seems they come onto CP wanting help for problems they can't solve.
I think that's how most of us got here initially...
I think so. I can't remember exactly what made me find code project almost 4 years ago. It was a google search for an article on something (I don't remember what - database in nature) and CP was the first hit in the search. Came here, checked it out, and that's been pretty much it since.
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
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Paul Conrad wrote:
it seems they come onto CP wanting help for problems they can't solve.
I think that's how most of us got here initially...
That's very true, but some of the current generation seems unwilling to learn, and looking to be spoonfed. I doubt most of us were like that.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
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I don't totally agree. I think that even R&D in biotechnology can be exported. E.g.: agriculture in Brazil and Argentina is already more productive than in developed countries mostly because of our R&D in biotechnology. Without subsidies farming in Europe, Japan and US would be extinct. As the article partially explains, the "comparative advantage" of rich countries lies in other area: marketing. What China, India and us (Brazil) have been doing is what Japan did for manufacturing in the 70's and 80's: produce cheaper (or better) what already exists. What the rich countries (not only the US but also Europe) know better is to invent and create markets that didn't exist before. E.g.: the whole IT industry (mostly the US), the mobile phone industry (mostly by Europeans), the industries of luxury goods (like Italian design, French fashion, German sport cars, etc). The careers I'd recommend for you would be marketing and finance.
Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.
Diego Moita wrote:
What the rich countries (not only the US but also Europe) know better is to invent and create markets that didn't exist before. E.g.: the whole IT industry (mostly the US), the mobile phone industry (mostly by Europeans), the industries of luxury goods (like Italian design, French fashion, German sport cars, etc).
And that is really all I was saying. An entreprenuerally society will always be on the cutting edge of lucretive new technologies. As those technologies mature they will naturally migrate down towards economies more managed and static.
The only conspiracies that concern me are the ones I am completely unaware of. By the time I find out about it, its probably a done deal. Nothing in the entire universe is more useless than morality without authority. A morality free of hypocrisy is no morality at all. Freedom is not something you express with your genitals, it is something you express with your mind.
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A very interesting article in offshore outosurcing[^]. If you're scared your job will be exported to India, East Europe or Latin America you'll find a deep analysis here. Basically, the author compares offshore-outsourcing with what happened before in agriculture and manufacturing. He explores the differences between "tradable" and "non-tradable" to speculate what will be outsourced to other countries and what will be the comparative advantages of rich countries.
Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.
Eyiyi downt speek mekseecan!
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Frankly, I continue to be amazed that so many bright young people continue to be drawn into the computer industry. Computer programming has been virtually a blue collar profession since the mid-90s and that is not going to change. If I were starting over again I would be developing skills in the bio-technology fields. We are on the verge of having technologies that allow us to create life forms that can revolutionize virtually every aspect of our lives and those are going to be far more significant going into the future than the high tech of the 20th century. Combining bio-technology with programming and fields such as architecture will be an unbeatable skill set going into the next several decades. The important thing is to not fall prey to socialist ideologies that blame our problems on the economic elites. We must maintain the most investment friendly economy in the world. Every penny I have earned since the mid-80's has come from rich folks trying to find some place to invest their wealth. That is a good thing and should be encouraged with low taxes and small government. We must also remain a friendly place for the best and the brightest of the world to migrate to. That strips competitive economies of their talent and brings them here. In such an environment, the most advanced and lucretive technologies of the future will remain here with us.
The only conspiracies that concern me are the ones I am completely unaware of. By the time I find out about it, its probably a done deal. Nothing in the entire universe is more useless than morality without authority. A morality free of hypocrisy is no morality at all. Freedom is not something you express with your genitals, it is something you express with your mind.
modified on Friday, December 21, 2007 5:18:33 PM
That's why, even at the ripe old age of 38, I am moving toward a career in law.
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Eyiyi downt speek mekseecan!
You can't spell 'singularity' either.
"We were backstage, playing Monopoly. Totally forgot there was a show, so sorry we are late." - Maynard James Keenan
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That's why, even at the ripe old age of 38, I am moving toward a career in law.
Really ? Doesn't that involve 4+ years of study ? My plan is to keep writing software until I die. Over time it will be realised that only bad software comes out of sending your spec to India. You need someone to manage the process, even if some grunt work is outsourced. And if you don't have jobs for graduates, that means the people who are already skilled will continue to be in more and more demand. Dev houses where I live are struggling because they've tried outsourcing, it failed, and they can't find good local applicants for their positions.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
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Really ? Doesn't that involve 4+ years of study ? My plan is to keep writing software until I die. Over time it will be realised that only bad software comes out of sending your spec to India. You need someone to manage the process, even if some grunt work is outsourced. And if you don't have jobs for graduates, that means the people who are already skilled will continue to be in more and more demand. Dev houses where I live are struggling because they've tried outsourcing, it failed, and they can't find good local applicants for their positions.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
Yes, four years is the minimum, but I'll probably do five by correspondence, while continuing to write software. So if I decide to stay inn software I get something legally related.
My head asplode!
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That's very true, but some of the current generation seems unwilling to learn, and looking to be spoonfed. I doubt most of us were like that.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
IMO, the current generation just view this industry as another type of work. Most doesn't even know or like programming. But because it is/was "hot", they just join the crowd. The problem arises that, because the system is still examination base, they are able to get good grade, despise that they got no idea and no passion in developing a software, PLUS the hiring manager, may be people who does know programming either. So base on the qualification, they are hired. And quite a lot of developers now doesn't even try to learn, they just go internet, find the solution, put it in their system, and go back home.... I can bet some of the "most of us" didn't even have a degree in computer science etc, but because we love this field, we did more than what the current grads do. I myself is from Electronic Engineering.
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Frankly, I continue to be amazed that so many bright young people continue to be drawn into the computer industry. Computer programming has been virtually a blue collar profession since the mid-90s and that is not going to change. If I were starting over again I would be developing skills in the bio-technology fields. We are on the verge of having technologies that allow us to create life forms that can revolutionize virtually every aspect of our lives and those are going to be far more significant going into the future than the high tech of the 20th century. Combining bio-technology with programming and fields such as architecture will be an unbeatable skill set going into the next several decades. The important thing is to not fall prey to socialist ideologies that blame our problems on the economic elites. We must maintain the most investment friendly economy in the world. Every penny I have earned since the mid-80's has come from rich folks trying to find some place to invest their wealth. That is a good thing and should be encouraged with low taxes and small government. We must also remain a friendly place for the best and the brightest of the world to migrate to. That strips competitive economies of their talent and brings them here. In such an environment, the most advanced and lucretive technologies of the future will remain here with us.
The only conspiracies that concern me are the ones I am completely unaware of. By the time I find out about it, its probably a done deal. Nothing in the entire universe is more useless than morality without authority. A morality free of hypocrisy is no morality at all. Freedom is not something you express with your genitals, it is something you express with your mind.
modified on Friday, December 21, 2007 5:18:33 PM
Stan Shannon wrote:
If I were starting over again I would be developing skills in the bio-technology fields.
and would shift heart from left to right?
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IMO, the current generation just view this industry as another type of work. Most doesn't even know or like programming. But because it is/was "hot", they just join the crowd. The problem arises that, because the system is still examination base, they are able to get good grade, despise that they got no idea and no passion in developing a software, PLUS the hiring manager, may be people who does know programming either. So base on the qualification, they are hired. And quite a lot of developers now doesn't even try to learn, they just go internet, find the solution, put it in their system, and go back home.... I can bet some of the "most of us" didn't even have a degree in computer science etc, but because we love this field, we did more than what the current grads do. I myself is from Electronic Engineering.
I didn't even finish high school....
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )