You're saying that writing a program or creating a software product in three different countries is no different than creating a pre-fabricated house in three different countries: the roof in the US, the window frames in China, and the walls in India. I think though that fitting a pre-fabricated house together is not the same as getting a dozen application components to work together. You can say that the whole point of API's is to allow just that to happen, but from what I notice, it's just not that easy.
What I see on the job every day is that there is no management. All the management, coordination, intelligent thinking, long-term thinking, etc., happens on the grunt level -- or, at the first tier management level. Above that, it's all hot air. So, all I'm saying is that if an entire company moves abroad, it might work very well after a year or two. But if it's scattered here and there, it won't work because you'll need the 2nd layer of management to do their job, and they don't know how.
But, I am happy for you that if push comes to shove, you will be able to go back and be able to work and live. As for me, I'm not so sure. Maybe you can hire me to teach your kids.
Joanna
ravi wrote:
joanna bujes wrote:
The truth is they don't have a clue on how to manage intellectual labor.
joanna, my friend, why is this not an elitist attitude? what is so intellectual about programming? it could be, but it doesn't need to be, and it seldom is. i.e., there are very neat solutions for proramming problems, but often brute force techniques (more CPU, more memory, etc.) solve the problem equally well, and most code, i suggest, exhibits little intelligent thought.
The "efficacy" of the capitalist model is more myth than fact.
i do not think it is due to any great strength of the capitalist model that outsourcing does and will succeed, since the proposed a posteriori capitalist/market theories state nothing more than the obvious. most of this work is boring, mundane, repetitive and trivial and is easy to replicate elsewhere.
as i said above, the work does not have to be that way. i knew people at bell labs who would come up with the most inventive counter-intuitive little algorithms to solve problems better. that's creative. perhaps even a little useful. but not really necessary.
--ravi
