OT: Computer Science in today's market

[Richard Gaskin]

Dan Shafer wrote:

> On Aug 24, 2005, at 11:16 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>> Jim Bufalini wrote:
>>> Several years ago I had a company that outsourced to India. You  
>>> can't leave anything to the imagination in the spec. If you do
>>> it's guaranteed to come back wrong. And there are cultural
>>> differences to deal with that effect the software.
>>> For example, making requests to reorder the prompts on a working
>>>  entry screen, so it matches the customer's workflow, elicit
>>> disbelief and outright laughter. The programmers can't understand
>>> why you would take something that works and change it solely for
>>> the convenience of the end user.
>>
>> I hope all my clients' competitors outsource. :)
>
> My guess is that this is old data. Funny, but old. I know several  
> companies that outsource fairly complicated software projects that do  
> involve relatively rich UIs and they report consistently good results  
> from their outsourcing partners.
> 
> In the early days of outsourcing, there was a lot of this kind of  
> miscommunication but I suspect that in the "several years" that have  
> elapsed since Jim's experience, the Indian programming world has made  
> great strides. Read "The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman for an  
> up-to-date look at this whole area.

The world _is_ flat:  I hear comments like that from stateside 
developers too. :)

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  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
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