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New How Offshore Outsourcing Failed Us

What are my options if my highly productive, 15-person software team generates only one-third the output our customers demand? I was certain that augmenting our team with offshore development was the right answer. It wasn't, at least for a small project we recently outsourced to an Indian firm. Here's our story.

[link|http://www.nwc.com/showitem.jhtml?docid=1421f3|link]
lincoln

"Windows XP has so many holes in its security that any reasonable user will conclude it was designed by the same German officer who created the prison compound in "Hogan's Heroes." - Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times
[link|http://users3.ev1.net/~bconnors/resume.htm|VB/SQL resume]
[link|http://users3.ev1.net/~bconnors/tandem_resume.htm|Tandem resume]
[link|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net|contact me]
New As I've so often said..
..the H1B's I met were no better than the average local IT worker, and often worse.

I never met one who was on the level of the people here.

I did meet a woman at IBM who was significantly above average.

Many of the H1Bs I met at Mastercard were plain awful. High school kids could have done a better job.

The idea of Indian "super-IT-men" is utterly bogus.
-drl
New Thoughts....
I had a thought. I'm working for a small company that seems to always be 2-3 months from running out of money.

There's always a deadline, an ask to work a weekend, late night or something.

But, then they grumble when I need a vacation day, sick day, etc.

My thought was that if this company doesn't keep me, then I'm going to start going after EDI and enterprise vendors that are hiring all this foreign labor. The likes of EDS/Sterling/etc.

If I can't get hired by them, then I'll just prevent them from being able to make sales, by creating the same software they sell as open-source.

Open source ANSI X.12, EDI, HL/7, NCPDP parsers. Open source data mapping tools from parser tools to databases. Open source ERP, Supply Chain, etc. interfaces. The point is that if you're good, you just need to keep doing what you're doing.

Eventually, companies will start using your open-source, find your name in the comments, and need to hire you to make modifications.

The sweetest victory would be one where your open source became the standard and the big companies were all struggling to stay afloat while you end up with more contracts (and money) than you can do.

I can dream.

Glen Austin
New I wonder if all who could code/manage to US standards
are already here in US, coding/managing.
--

OK, George W. is deceptive to be sure. Dissembling, too. And let's not forget deceitful. He is lacking veracity and frankness, and void of sooth, though seemingly sincere in his proclivity for pretense. But he did not lie.
[link|http://www.jointhebushwhackers.com/not_a_liar.cfm|Brian Wimer]
New Not even close
Tens of thousands of 40-50ish engineers are out of work, because they "don't have Java". As the story points out, Indian Java can be damn shitty. I've seen this up close and personal.

It the stupid reliance on "metrics" and "experience" - worthles metrics that measure nothing and useless experience at mouthing buzzwords - that keep Americans out of jobs. Not to mention that those slaves work for %20 of what we do.

Does it sound like I'm pissed at them? Damn straight. To hell with those mercenaries.They allow their countrymen starve to death in abject poverty while exploiting gullible American IT management and causing misery for American workers who are every bit as good as
-drl
New It was more than the Java that was bad.
The entire design was bad, from UI to DB to business objects.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New Seen it before
I was doing Smalltalk at Time Warner in 1997. The VP (business unit CIO) was a Pakistani named Fahim. There were an astonishing number of people of similar ethnicity (especially for Denver which has a nearly non-existent middle eastern contingent). This particluar region of cubicles came to be known as "Uncle Fahim's Cabin". More interestingly, TW was using an offshore development outfit for certain modules. The company was owned by Fahim's brother. Everything we ever got from them was late, was crap, and was rewritten in the small hours by top developers (the only ones who could make sense of the mess). No I wasn't one of them - I was still learning ST at the time.

Projects continued to go there though. So I got my taste of outsourcing pretty early. I know how it really goes.



In Java, you can't escape the creepy feeling.

     --James Gosling
New How long before PHBs get burned?
--

OK, George W. is deceptive to be sure. Dissembling, too. And let's not forget deceitful. He is lacking veracity and frankness, and void of sooth, though seemingly sincere in his proclivity for pretense. But he did not lie.
[link|http://www.jointhebushwhackers.com/not_a_liar.cfm|Brian Wimer]
New Re: How long before PHBs get burned?
What? They are our Soviets, with 5-month plans. No matter how much they fuck up, they are immune.

You think this crap just started with the dotcom boom? I've seen idiots in IT management going back into the mid 80s. It exponentiated with the release of Windows and the advent of soylent/server.
-drl
New Question:
It the stupid reliance on "metrics" and "experience" - worthles metrics that measure nothing and useless experience at mouthing buzzwords - that keep Americans out of jobs.

If Murican bizniss is relying on "experience", what are so many 40-somethings to 50-somethings (read: experienced techies) out of work?

Perhaps your premise is wrong; bizniss is not relying on "experience", they're relying on the premise that tech workers are simply interchangeable cogs inthe Machine, and that a cheaper cog is therefore better than a more experienced cog.
jb4
"There are two ways for you to have lower Prescription-drug costs. One is you could hire Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper ... or you can elect me President."
John Kerry
New Well, there's also . . .
. . the popular perceptions that technical experience is made obsolete and useless in a matter of months, that young guys are up on the latest technology and unburdened by legacy crap, and that every PFY (Pimply Faced Youth) is a computer expert who knows eveything there is to know, while older folks, like themselves, can't comprehend any of it.

Another perception held by the mystified is that to handle a particular "title", you must have training and certification in exactly that "title". They themselves learned to do their computer work by memorizing keystrokes and mouse clicks and simply have no concept that it can be any other way.

Dealing entirely with nontechnical people, I see the strength of these perceptions every day. Since Personnel / Industrial Relations / Human Resources jerks are non-technical, as are the bosses, I'm pretty sure these are articles of faith for all of them.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New 'zacly
I have 18 years of C experience - I know it better than English. There is no Earthly reason for me to be sitting here on my ass, worried about starving come February.
-drl
New How widespread?
Can you confirm a mindset I seem to find, often - even from much less experience than yours. I'm here assuming that many of your clients are too small to have even one full/part-time techincal person on their payroll. (Damn! are they lucky to have found you instead of ..)

It seems that, the "memorizing keystrokes" method must be common in most offices. Specifically, when I tactfully try to elicit an idea about what the questioner knows about their "file system" - asking, say, ~ "do you ever use Windows Explorer - and if so, what for?".. I'm left with the impression that few have any idea what the phrase 'hierarchical file system' might mean. New directories/ {ugh} folders, if created - are done so via some ap; often these folks would not know how to *find* that directory in any other way than via the ap being used.

ie. The concept of creating a new folder, moving or copying files singly or as a group - is alien, as is any idea of why you might wish to do this. One example: a person who began storing Everything in "Briefcase" willy-nilly and over a lengthy period. Hundreds Mbytes of intermixed graphics and other files, usually named Silly-ways.

Simply - is this also what you find? Zero awareness of even what a file manager might be for (thus similar unawareness of what "backup" might mean, how it might be done - even minimally). Is this level of ignorance about basics as widespread as it seems, and getting no better.. in '03?


Ashton
New Go look in the trash
I have quite a few here that actually use the various Recycle Bins (filesystems, Outlook, ...) for storage. This despite the occasional accident and me telling them several times to put stuff anywhere but there. Even when I ask them if they keep their lunch in the dustbin as well, it simply doesn't click.
New ***farkinboggle***
-drl
New Seconded
At the law firm, our email server was runing out of disk space. The admin discovered she could get back about 30% of that space just by auto-emptying everyone's trashcans. Next day, people started screaming for backups. They had whole directory structures built up in their trashcans. Because we didn't track that.

Two users had over 10k messages in their trash. Most with attachments. Of multi-hundred page legal docs. "Boggle" isn't the word for it.
===

Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
New Send that one in to Shark Tank.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New Good call, will do
===

Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
New Very
I have clients who have used computers intensively since the Kaypro who have no concept of what a directory or subdirectory is.

The almost universal answer when I ask "Where do you store your documents?" is an incredulous, "Well, I store them in Word of course". Any request for more information is met by a blank stare of incomprehension and a repeat of "They're all in Word".

No, people do not use Windows Explorer (so Microsoft has moved it way down to Start / All Programs / Accessories). When I do phone support, many people on the other end have never seen Windows Explorer before.

I find most people find a tree structured directory incomprehensible - even when it's shown graphicly by ZTree or Windows Explorer. This seemd so absurd I had trouble accepting it, but the evidence was overwhelming. One such person was an employee here for over a year.

Attempting to explain how documents are stored and how they may be copied from place to place "wastes your time and annoys the pig".

I have noticed a slight improvement though. Many now understand their documents are in the "My Documents folder", not "In Word", and can point to the "My Documents" folder on the desktop. The flip side is many people no longer know how to open documents from within Word, they only know how to double click on them in the My Documents folder.

That brings me to another item. "On the desktop" is a phrase unrecognized by a large number of users. After careful explanation, they'll come up with something like "Oh, you mean my main manu!". So much for the universality of the desktop metaphor - it's still a "menu", just with pictures.

Many users cannot comprehend the Start Menu structure. If I forget to make an icon on their desktop, they're lost and call me to tell me they can't do their work. "You didn't install my programs." So much for Microsoft's "clean desktop" theory for Windows XP.

These people are not somebody's aged grandmother - I don't deal with home users - they're people who depend on using computers to do their jobs. These are not stupid people either, there's just something about the way computer systems are designed that doesn't click for a great many people.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New So, given your experience, can it be fixed?
With a different design, I guess?
--

OK, George W. is deceptive to be sure. Dissembling, too. And let's not forget deceitful. He is lacking veracity and frankness, and void of sooth, though seemingly sincere in his proclivity for pretense. But he did not lie.
[link|http://www.jointhebushwhackers.com/not_a_liar.cfm|Brian Wimer]
New The success of the "My Documents" folder . .
. . indicates designs that work can be found. Many have even started making subdirectories within My Documents, somthing they found incomprehensible when the abstractions were less related to physical experience.

The fact that "My Documents" contained another folder, "My Pictures" finally got the point accross that other folders were possible, and that stuff could even be dragged from My Documents into them. This was something they previously could not comprehend. Many still can't comprehend it and have 790 doucument "My Documents" folders, but progress is happening.

All computer stuff is abstractions heaped on abstractions piled on abstractions. The problem is abstractions obvious to software desgners are meningless to others. Developing workable abstractions is going to be an evolutionary thing.

For my part, I'm making progress too. I'm now willing to use filenames up to 18 characters long, maybe even 20, but I doubt I'll ever allow spaces in them.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New Abstractions - and *Bob*/Linux
WHOLLY SHIT that is truly Astounding! even more-so coming from you -
since I appreciate by now that you don't exaggerate about such matters. Your comments above are nothing less than a massive Sociology Goldmine.. for anybody working in this field and also capable of original thought (if there are a handful left anywhere, still with such qualifications?) An appalling state of affairs. This is PhD thesis material, I trust you realize! And from just this terse report, I envision even more appalling consequences - as always There Are.

This is 'Who' We Are,
a Rorshak of the "workforce" from PHB through commodity-worker. (With the appropriately demonstrated inverted IQ-tree, as all PHB lore demonstrates - for extra Degree-credit .. if one dares to speak starkly what the Rorshak reveals.)

Remember all the flak Billy received for Bob ??
(Was it his pre-wife's project.. or was that just wonderfully wry gossip?)
Because - I think you just made the case for Ex Pee Bob.
And no - it just may Not be "too late.." Nor certainly is it "too silly". For, thou hast said the way It Is.

(maybe call it Ex Pee Billy, Your Friendly Fluffy Bunny All-in-One Solution Provider and Entertainment Center)

But after all the fun & games, what you just outlined - indicates the source of much of the obv resentment of the (messenger) Keepers of these 'systems'; resentment.. ON ALL LEVELS! -- 'IT' as incomprehensible to the chain-ganged cubicle-pent users as is the mystery of successfully punching out chads in a ballot.

We took guys n'gals who don't ever change the oil or add battery water in their Chevy pickup, can't set a VCR or guess.. how an internal combustion engine might work - and told em to fly this here Space Shuttle, without even a cartoon manual: as clearly befits the actual need / the dumbth-level.

And [link|http://www.nclug.org/pipermail/nclug/2001-November/002278.html| this Gem], linked by Karsten in the M$ forum, and dated 12 Nov 2001:

Appears to indicate != "what the title suggests" (Why Linux will win and Micro$oft will lose). My very own tinylittlebrain informs me that:

Even were *nix installed in its Highest current form - with those essential Policies and QC of {what else} Debian, and by Karsten or Greg or Peter et al;
even-if a new KDE [or whatever] Doze-friendly GUI were rock-solid and the Main-aps 99.x% Billy-compatible;
even if installing a modem were Not an exercise in "find the right config files / BTW - how Many do I Need to find?"
even if CUPS self-started and auto-configured to any old printing-thing within 100 meters;
even if - _____

You just described a Bob-World, and prolly not just for Muricans.
Forget Linux. (except as a hobby for Chess players: it's a Checkers world)





{sigh}

SHIT - Dubya, Faith-Based Invasions\ufffd, Neoconman hordes shoutin BS everywhere, general language murder, RIAA Beast-apitalists, 'depression' rampant in the psyches of the Bob-crowd - despite billions of expensive pills AND Depression-not-recession re. gettin the fish heads and rice into the hovel . . .




Think I'll fire up some Wagner and open the '61 d'Yqem.
(I'm sure glad that none of this stuff actualy matters)
New Not just a rumor...
[link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob|http://en.wikipedia....iki/Microsoft_Bob]

Microsoft Bob was a project managed by Melinda French, who later married Bill Gates to become Melinda Gates.


Now, how much nepotism had to do with the project is a matter of debate...
In that final hour, when each breath is a struggle to take, and you are looking back over your life's accomplishments, which memories would you treasure? The empires you built, or the joy you spread to others?

Therin lies the true measure of a man.
New Re: Not just a rumor...
Hmm, coulda married that Apple guy - Ms. French Jobs. OK.
-drl
New Related article on security . .
. . where the problem is much worse, [link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/33599.html|Joe Average User Is In Trouble].
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New This isn't a computer-only issue
Imagine asking the typical office worker to come up with a way to categorize random books. Don't let them use the Dewey Decimal System[tm]. In fact look at DDS itself: no hierarchy. And the only way librarys could index anything pre-computers was to maintain multiple indices.

But current computer filesystems add another problem. You can only have one system. You can't file things by customer and vendor. One or the other has to be the top of the hierarchy. Mail clients are solving this proelm with virtual folders, but there is no (common) current support at the filesystem level for multiple topolgies.

I don't think it should be too surprising that most people don't know how to create their own topolgies. It's not something most people ever have to do. It is also why the people who do have to do it spend so much effort getting it "right".
===

Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
New My favorite part...
You might assume that, given our dismal experience with offshore development, we have written off this model completely. Not so. Offshore may still hold promise as a way to cost-effectively extend our current team.


Yep, I got hit in the head with a 2x4. But that won't stop me from asking to be hit in the head with a 2x4 again. Classic PHB.
bcnu,
Mikem

The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.

- Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
New Mine:
Like a contract manufacturing plant, the offshore model is designed to funnel any and all projects through a labyrinth of processes and internal controls so that novice employees who don't know anything about a customer's business can achieve acceptable results.

The problem is that you can't factory-produce this kind of software. Developing software is more like team surgery, where competency, experience, group chemistry and knowledge of the patient go a lot further than a set of processes for how the surgery should be performed.

Imric's Tips for Living
  • Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
  • Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
  • Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.


Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
 
 
New re "Team"
Am I a tiny minority (again) in coming to utterly despise the current bogus usage of that word? Feels a lot like satisfiction. Seems to be a massive Wish-word on the part of the wielders (management).. that their Top-down planning will be / has been utterly assimilated by the willing .. nay Wildly Enthusiastic "team members" (despite their individual votes being hardly even symbolic in the "decision process").

(My unimpeachable source for Office Politics is, of course - Sally Forth and her now many-week effort to find another gig, given the portrayal of her Boss Man, a guy from the head-in-toilet mold of CA's New Guv.)


Ashton Biz-speak Analyst
New Re: re "Team"
It's the belief that "monitoring" and "metrics" are useful. The desire is to mechanize everything. That's easier than intuitive, results- drivern leadership based on direct knowledge of individuals.

These are PHBs - they don't even understand machines, much less people.
-drl
New Re: re "Team"
you can't spell team without 'm' 'e'

A
Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy
Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET
All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM
Reggae, African and Caribbean Music
[link|http://wxxe.org|Tune In]
New Not alone.
The business term I despise most is "Human Resources". We're people, damn it. We are not "to be consumed". I've hated that phrase since the first time I heard it (now probably 20 years ago). I'll bet few ever even consider the implications of switching from "Personnel" (root: person) to "Human Resources" (humans targetted for consumption ala Solent Green).

Returning to work as an employee for the first time in few years, I can honestly say that every negative about being an employee has only become worse. I am convinced that Corporate Murica no longer desires a workforce, they want instead a "cult" and they don't mind forcing their employees to feign membership in their cult if necessary. (Note: failing to at least pretend to be a member of the cult can lose you your job). I think this is univerally true among Murican Corps these days.
bcnu,
Mikem

The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.

- Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
New Human Resources and the Cult Mentality
I agree with you there, we are now a Resource instead of a person. No name, just an Employee Number with a large record of what we do at work plus rumors from what the other Employees say about us added to the record. At least it was that way at the law firm I used to work at, HR and Management believed any rumor that was spoken about us and added it to our HR record. Then it showed up on annual reviews. Sort of like having one of those Supermarket Tabloids writing a series of stories on you. "Orion marries Bigfoot", "Orion seen with Elvis at Burger King", "Orion is really a UFO Space Alien".

But anyway, there is a cult mentality and a lot of smoozing with management. The IT Manager had a party at his big house (read Mansion) which was decked up like Bill Gates' mansion with security cameras, talking computers, and all sorts of high tech gadgets. I had scheduled six months in advance to take two weeks off for a trip to Thailand to meet my in-laws over there. The Boss was upset that I missed his party, wanted me to reschedule. I couldn't because my wife had to take vacation too, plus the plane tickets are hard to get and expensive. We had to fly three flights, two of them Chinese Airline flights, to get to Bangkok and back. He was always asking me if I put Java in my programs because at one time I suggested using it for clients who want to access our Intranet but only have Netscape or some other browser and not IE. That flagged me as a Non-Cult member, because members of the Cult are Pro-Microsoft and Anti-Alternatives to Microsoft. So we did everything in ASP, VBScript for the Intranet and some Javascript when VBScript didn't work. I suggested Linux and SAMBA for servers after NT 4.0 Server crashed a lot and needed to be rebooted a dozen times or more a day. It didn't matter that clients won't notice the difference, but because it was not made by Microsoft, my idea was rejected and I was flagged once again in my HR file. I also suggested that we use OOP in VB and create DLL files that can handle common routines that are used over and over again in our VB and ASP programs with reusable objects. The Boss was Anti-OOP and it was rejected again and flagged in my HR file again. Keep in mind that these ideas would have helped things and made our jobs easier, but because of the cult mindset, they were rejected. Finally after four and a half years, they made up what they could about me, took all the HR flags in my file, said I didn't live up to my potential, and let me go. At Five years I would have had an extra vacation week, started earning a pension, and would have gotten more profit sharing. If I would have joined The Cult, I might still have a job there.



"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"

New It's hard for me to tell
how much "supposition" there is, in this list of "actionable offenses against the Corp Culture".

I'd like to believe verbatim, this report. Please confirm that you mean literally = that you had some means of verifying that:

There were actual written notes added to your personnel file, merely reporting that you had suggested:

A) That a Linux server might save lost time.
B) That "OOP" might enable creation of an (actually useful) .dll
C) That.. were you to use "Java" - that fact alone would be prima facie evidence of your wish to make their website accessible to "other than Microsoft browsers". (And that would be deemed unacceptably Bad.)

Were these (alone) grounds for scolding, or are you omitting perhaps some other exchanges over time, which suggested that you might actually Want! to.. use non-M$ products ie would enjoy doing this! (?)

See.. it's hard to credit so monstrously simplistic an operation here. But I'll believe it if you write in blood that "there were no Other provocations" needed for a negative entry in your official 'record'.


(Gawd - sure this place wasn't in Salem MA? or is that now a suburb of StL?)
New Been there - done that - tried to pick up the pieces
This past summer, I was hired [via Adecco technical] by a company in Brooklyn NY to 'take over development' of an application developed by an outsourcing company in the Ukraine.

When I examined the source code and scanty documentation, I saw I was presented with the great illustrated guide of how not to construct a three tier application. The outsourcing company managed to duplicate Java Web Start technology [without being aware it existed], used a CORBA ORB to send block mode terminal messages [fields, grids and button presses] instead of acting as an object broker. A hand crafted app server, looking a lot like my circa 1987 designs - the use of an off the shelf server or framework [JBoss, struts, tomcat] was newver considered.

Further, the folks in the ukrane were reluctant to cede control of the project's CVS repository - they kept adding new roots to 'their' copy instead of new revisions to the shared repository.

All in all, I was not surprised when their parent company [Phillips] pulled their plug. I thought that the only hope for the project was to perform a massive refactoring amounting to a total rewrite.
Dave
New Don't know about India, but
in the former Soviet Union the state of programming is odd. A lot of smart people there. May be the smartest in the world. But they don't have any experience with large projects.

Russian programmers (or Ukrainian, no matter) understand algorithms. The hardware they dealt with was so outdated, slow and unreliable, the algorithms had to compensate. The new generation grew up with PCs, Windows, Linux. They understand programs, modules, libraries, UIs and SDKs, not just algorithms. That's a huge step forward.

However, the understanding that a three-tier system is more than a few programs that happen to run at the same time is not there yet. It may take another generation to get that right.
--

OK, George W. is deceptive to be sure. Dissembling, too. And let's not forget deceitful. He is lacking veracity and frankness, and void of sooth, though seemingly sincere in his proclivity for pretense. But he did not lie.
[link|http://www.jointhebushwhackers.com/not_a_liar.cfm|Brian Wimer]
New The Russian Way?
As mentioned earlier, the Russians had an approach to spaceflight based on incremental improvements. This seems ideally suited for programming - inside out design - make the core work, add layers of functionality - as opposed to design-everything-up-front, which only produces bloated junk.

Russian physics and math books are extremely good because they are practically oriented - get something done and then worry about the details. A friend who was familiar stated that this practical approach was ingrained in the Russian character, from having to improvise, deal with harsh political climates and bureaucracy, make do with scanty resources. This again indicates that they would make great software people.

-drl
New Inside out works better for small outsides
A typical Russian programmer (me included, although I fight it) starts by making sure that the algorithms work. It's fine for smaller projects, but on large user-oriented one can lead to programmer-driven UIs. In the extreme cases, you get disconnected screens and a programmer who say "But the program works: look, I put data in the database, and the result comes out perfectly correct".
--

OK, George W. is deceptive to be sure. Dissembling, too. And let's not forget deceitful. He is lacking veracity and frankness, and void of sooth, though seemingly sincere in his proclivity for pretense. But he did not lie.
[link|http://www.jointhebushwhackers.com/not_a_liar.cfm|Brian Wimer]
New You just perfectly described someone I knew
No, he wasn't Russian. Hungarian. Did most of his training in Hungaria, and I think some in Russia.

I always put it down to the fact that he started programming in the 1960s. But now I wonder...

Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
New We Russians programmed in 60s up until 90s :)
--

The rich, as usual, are employing the elected.
-- [link|http://unfit2print.blogspot.com/|http://unfit2print.blogspot.com/]
     How Offshore Outsourcing Failed Us - (lincoln) - (39)
         As I've so often said.. - (deSitter) - (1)
             Thoughts.... - (gdaustin)
         I wonder if all who could code/manage to US standards - (Arkadiy) - (22)
             Not even close - (deSitter) - (21)
                 It was more than the Java that was bad. - (admin) - (3)
                     Seen it before - (tuberculosis) - (2)
                         How long before PHBs get burned? -NT - (Arkadiy) - (1)
                             Re: How long before PHBs get burned? - (deSitter)
                 Question: - (jb4) - (16)
                     Well, there's also . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (15)
                         'zacly - (deSitter)
                         How widespread? - (Ashton) - (13)
                             Go look in the trash - (scoenye) - (4)
                                 ***farkinboggle*** -NT - (deSitter)
                                 Seconded - (drewk) - (2)
                                     Send that one in to Shark Tank. -NT - (admin) - (1)
                                         Good call, will do -NT - (drewk)
                             Very - (Andrew Grygus) - (7)
                                 So, given your experience, can it be fixed? - (Arkadiy) - (4)
                                     The success of the "My Documents" folder . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (3)
                                         Abstractions - and *Bob*/Linux - (Ashton) - (2)
                                             Not just a rumor... - (inthane-chan) - (1)
                                                 Re: Not just a rumor... - (deSitter)
                                 Related article on security . . - (Andrew Grygus)
                                 This isn't a computer-only issue - (drewk)
         My favorite part... - (mmoffitt) - (7)
             Mine: - (imric)
             re "Team" - (Ashton) - (5)
                 Re: re "Team" - (deSitter) - (1)
                     Re: re "Team" - (andread)
                 Not alone. - (mmoffitt) - (2)
                     Human Resources and the Cult Mentality - (orion) - (1)
                         It's hard for me to tell - (Ashton)
         Been there - done that - tried to pick up the pieces - (dlevitt) - (5)
             Don't know about India, but - (Arkadiy) - (4)
                 The Russian Way? - (deSitter) - (3)
                     Inside out works better for small outsides - (Arkadiy) - (2)
                         You just perfectly described someone I knew - (ben_tilly) - (1)
                             We Russians programmed in 60s up until 90s :) -NT - (Arkadiy)

That is The Story.

The rest is just pretty pictures.
124 ms