Oakman wrote:

Maybe this is all a matter of faith to you?

Nope, but I don't share their biases about what to do with the data both in terms of the number crunching, and what argument to align it to.

Oakman wrote:

Are you one of those guys who thought Clinton should have gotten off scot free, but Libbey deserved to be locked up for 2 1/2 years?

Did either of them hire H1-B holders? Clinton perjured himself about getting a hummer or three in what was essentially a civil matter, Libby perjured himself, made false statements, and obstructed justice about a criminal matter. I didn't expect either of them to be out anything more than legal fees, since power corrupts regardless of party affiliation.

Oakman wrote:

Maybe you think the U.S. should cut its energy use by 90% while China and India cut theirs by 10%.

If you want to pose it as a question of managing to the least common denominator, go right ahead. China and India are not our friends and they really should only be a yardstick for what we could do better. IMHO, the only relevant yardstick in energy consumption is how much faster we're getting off fossil fuels and onto other alternatives than they are. Any time you can marry up what's strategically sound and environmentally sound, it should be a home run. The US economy is ideally suited to get ahead in this area.

Oakman wrote:

how does one obtain neutrality in a debate as to whether the Feds should enforce the border laws and arrest illegal aliens?

A starting point would be for politicians and lobbyists associated with CIS and FAIR to not talk in terms of eugenics and discrimination.

Oakman wrote:

Shoyuld they renounce their citizenship or is actively aiding and abetting wetbacks enough?

Just the "wetbacks?" And, when you're talking about aiding and abetting, does that include carrying luggage off planes for Irish or Russians who plan to overstay their visas? After all, their backs would be pretty dry unless the a/c in the plane broke down. As for arresting illegal immigrants, I'd like to make the following SAT analogy about the likely rate of success... arresting / deporting illegal immigrants: successful immigration control :: arresting / jailing dime-bag salesmen : winning the war

Oakman wrote:

ven though you had the time to google one of the sources

Net time to use google to look up CIS: ~ 5 seconds, plus a couple of minutes to scan results. Net time to review DoL labor stats: > 5 seconds, plus a couple of minutes to scan results. No mystery in my time allocation in that area.

Oakman wrote:

Your use of the phrase "immigation" to refer to illegals pretty much tells me all I need to know about your ability to bury unpleasant truths.

CIS and FAIR cover the waterfront of all immigration, not just illegal immigration. In any case, the word "illegal" is a modifier of "immigration," and you have no way of knowing what I think on the subject of illegal or other immigration outside the question of H1-B visa holders and their employment patterns. I'll give you a hint though, I think that if you want to control the supply of illegal immigrants, you should try reducing demand.

Oakman wrote:

Tell me, do you also think the U.S. deserved 9/11?

Have you stopped beating your wife yet? That's an interesting rhetorical device, sir, but hardly germane to H1-B visas. And just in case you try and read my mind again, the answer to your rhetorical tactic masquerading as a question is "no."

Oakman wrote:

I merely find the field of macro-economics filled with witch-doctore pretending to be scientists, and those who place their faith in the field to be fools

Hmm. I'd suggest that they are amateur mathematicians who make questionable assumptions, but that's just me. Still, there are plenty of people who are making money listening to the fools, and some of them make hiring decisions about programmers. (Just to circle back to the original thread for a moment...)

Oakman wrote:

Fascinating, elsewhere you doubt my figures, even though I cited sources, here you happily accept them because you think you can twist them to support your argument. However, it only works if one believes that bodyshop imports are the equal of the Americans they replace, which is, except in isolated cases untrue. Since they are untrue, your money-grubbing 'rational' manager is harming the product to produce a temporarily better bottom line.

You cited a study from an organization with at best questionable claims to neutrality in the debate. You then said "in my experience..." which is anecdotal evidence. You haven't provided any data to indicate that foreign programmers are worse. I responded with an anecdotal experience, from working with programmers from a body shop, and made a comment about the bottom line. You responded:

Oakman wrote:

Since they are untrue, your money-grubbing 'rational' manager is harming the product to produce a temporarily better bottom line.

Welcome to the wonderful world of American management. Is this a surprise to you?

Oakman wrote:

Well it's no suprise that you would find some reason to doubt its figures - even though they cite every source.

And no-one ever lies with statistics. Ever.

Oakman wrote:

You have the time, you just don't have the guts. There's nothing sadder than someone afraid to find out the truth.

Actually, I'm trying to make sure that my job doesn't get taken by an H1-B holder. But if you are in fact interested in the truth, you can check here and here for a quick overview on the array of anti-immigration organizations that the CIS founder has also started, and a sense of where his funding comes. Bluntly, he's a bigot, and a bigot with statistics is still a bigot.

Oakman wrote:

Dream on, MacDuck. Macro-economics are just another word for fantasy-land.

Well, feel free to ignore state to state debt, currency flows, and suchlike, because if they are fantasy then they surely won't affect your daily life.

Oakman wrote:

Actually, my experience is that far fewer of the bargain-basement H1Bs hired for 50K were worth their paychecks than the 75K - 100K citizens. But you can believe whatever you want about the U.S. programmer.

Well there you go, my experience is that they're about equally average, so why wouldn't a rational manager go for average at less cost?

Quite a surprise, that an anti-immigration think tank would have concluded that H1-B holders were paid less than natives. If I had the time, I'd be curious to take a look at the DoL data and see if it actually indicates what CIS claims it does. As for dollars going overseas, the US economy benefits from dollars anywhere, and whether it's central bank holdings or campesino holdings, dollars overseas help maintain the practical and currency value of the dollar. I'll happily admit that funds being sent to families overseas don't match the importance of central bank holdings, but at a macro-economic level, it's just as important as local consumer spending.

If you're going to make the argument about the part not representing the whole, then you can hardly suggest that any given company hiring H1-B holders won't pay qualified locals market rates. Some companies may be taking that approach, some may not. US citizen programmers might pay more tax if they indeed earned more, but since you don't cite any of the studies you mention, that's up for debate as a proposition. Funds sent overseas are only a bad thing on a micro-economic basis - overall, the more dollars floating around the world, the better for the US economy.

Did you get that out of Lee Iacocca's old files? I think it was in the folder marked "Pinto development team."

Marc Clifton wrote:

If a team member has no sense of ethics regarding the work, it creates imbalance.

I've had problems with junior staff (as a consultant) and found that if you have limited time to "coach" people or not enough time to get rid of them, then you just have to focus on channeling their behavior. The missus used to teach management courses, which she freely admitted was a waste of time in most cases, but she did give me this useful list of task management approaches to go through. In order of increasing ability to take something and run with it: * telling (thou shalt do X in the following steps at the following intervals) * selling (Hey, you really want to do X!) * participating (Let's do X together! [urgh]) * delegating (get X done by time Y, see you then.) If you've got consultants who are paid to support you, as customer you should really only have to pick between telling and delegating. If they can't be trusted to deliver in a given timeframe with limited guidance, then it's time to tell them what to do and make them hit incremental reporting and progress goals.

Rob Graham wrote:

Break the task up just as you said you would do it yourself: Shog9 wrote: research the problem, find the area where the root problem lies, write some test cases to illustrate the problem and verify when it's been fixed, and then fix assign the bug to someone. Put deadlines on the parts and schedule status meetings to discus results at each milepost. You need to make it a practice to get more than just bug fixes out of this - get some usable regression tests as well.

I was about to write the same thing, so instead I'll second the recommendation. Also be clear about what you want documented and how, so that you've got clear standards to enforce along with the schedule.