About the sense or nonsense of software outsourcing

[videomixer9]

As I said, the usual chinese concept, stealing innovation and claim it being yours. I think only India got a worse reputation in software development. What's it worth to have a ton of software writing monkeys.

[unskinnyboy]

As I said, the usual chinese concept, stealing innovation and claim it being yours. I think only India got a worse reputation in software development. What's it worth to have a ton of software writing monkeys.
oh wow, what happened? You are 55 years old struggling to your dead-end coding job which might soon be outsourced to some 25 year old kid in a 3rd world country who comes at a lower maintenance cost than you? :p

[unskinnyboy]

Well, giving out an irresponsible blanket statement like that is about as ignorant as claiming that all Muslims are terrorists or all Germans are Nazis. If there are a few black apples which have done something had, that doesn't mean that you slap the blame on a whole country or culture. There is good and bad everywhere, in case you didn't know.

And where exactly is it "widely acknowledged" in business science? You have any credible links containing any research materials to prove this? If so, please point me to them. Else, stop generalizing. It is irresponsible for someone with a moderator's stature to be doing so.

[videomixer9]

We'll I'm not Nazi but I actually got a part time job at a company to earn something for my studying and the company let's programmers from india and china do work, the chinese are at least coding monkeys for them and the code delivered isn't usually bad, but the code from India is such utter crap that somebody always has to redo their work, the company thinks they save money but they actually don't. Hearing similar things from others it seems to be more than just a prejudice.

And China being uninnovative, just name some chinese developed product that isn't a copy, there hardly is one if you don't go back into ancient history. They are still just buying technology and architecture from all around the world and I think they are aware of the problem, but they hardly do anything against it. Product development or actual innovation work is done in the USA, Europe or Japan and then China just barges in as cheap producer. If it's textiles, architecture, technology or software ... and it will have to do with a lot of various factors from single child rules and resulting social pressure to communistic ideas and tries to get people think pretty much along the same line. If Chinese would actually crush markets with own innovatations it would be okay, but just skipping innovation and just make cheap copies at the cost of people who worked hard to create it is just despicable. And there's much more that can piss you off on Chinas way of economy, and I think that if it wasn't for the greed and consumers wishes to anything cheaper and cheaper that many companies wouldn't do buisness with Chinese, and if it'd be only cause so many stuff was already stolen by them. But somehow you can make a good deal even if the technology is stolen in the end, cause they'll steal it anyways and then you can better sell it to them before and earn at least something.

However, we'll see, but as said I got a bad feeling about it and just as Manao I read many things in that pdf already that made me wonder if it isn't just some codec very similar to MPEG and the document especially targetting MPEG-LA and licensing fees stinks like their target is producing a copy of MPEG but just for a cheaper price so that they can boot out MPEG-LA with dumping price.

And e.g. the money from MP3 licensing invented by Fraunhofer is used here in Germany e.g. to invest in Fraunhofers science work to innovate and not just for pure cashmaking. And I rather see researchers that do fine work get some money rather than some chinese dudes barging in with a copy investing it in getting rich themselves and just wait for someone else who doesn't get this research financed anymore to innovate sth. new for them to copy.

also, a funfact I read recently in stern or spiegel, in a questionare about germany where they asked english children for a famous german 90% named Adolf Hitler and the next one was Beckenbauer or so with 4% ... people won't forget about bad things so quick :P So "made in china" will be probably a negative brand for much longer I guess ...

[foxyshadis]

Good Indian developers and engineers now cost as much as good american ones (those who haven't already immigrated here), thanks to the outsourcing wage boom. You have to go to another SE Asian country if you want that kind of deal now, otherwise you're only paying for lower tier engineers with extra churn and all kinds of outsourcing overhead.

[Adub]

That is all interesting and all, but what exactly does it have to do with AVS?

[unskinnyboy]

We'll I'm not Nazi but I actually got a part time job at a company to earn something for my studying and the company let's programmers from india and china do work, the chinese are at least coding monkeys for them and the code delivered isn't usually bad, but the code from India is such utter crap that somebody always has to redo their work, the company thinks they save money but they actually don't. Hearing similar things from others it seems to be more than just a prejudice.
Your ignorance knows no bounds. Do you have any idea how many registered software companies are there in India? Thousands. Of this about 90% works with outsourced business. So if every time any piece of code written by an Indian had to be rewritten by someone else, you think all these companies are nuts to go and set up camp in India and/or try to get hold of Indians to write software? Do you think the CFOs of all these big companies would just let their money go to waste on second-rate programmers? Fat chance. Then what about your experience with bad Indian programmers? Simple. Your company wanted to cut corners and outsourced their work to some fly-by-night company with inexperienced programmers. There are plenty of such outfits. Intelligence lies in identifying a good company to outsource your work to. Companies with solid clients, companies with impeccable references, companies with tradition. There are plenty of such companies too. So blame *your* company for not outsourcing their work to a decent company.

I am Indian by origin. Talking about fixing bad code, I can't count the number of times I had to fix crappy code written by Americans. Does this mean that I think that all Americans are bad coders? Of course not.

And China being uninnovative, just name some chinese developed product that isn't a copy, there hardly is one if you don't go back into ancient history. They are still just buying technology and architecture from all around the world and I think they are aware of the problem, but they hardly do anything against it. Product development or actual innovation work is done in the USA, Europe or Japan and then China just barges in as cheap producer. If it's textiles, architecture, technology or software ... and it will have to do with a lot of various factors from single child rules and resulting social pressure to communistic ideas and tries to get people think pretty much along the same line. If Chinese would actually crush markets with own innovatations it would be okay, but just skipping innovation and just make cheap copies at the cost of people who worked hard to create it is just despicable. And there's much more that can piss you off on Chinas way of economy, and I think that if it wasn't for the greed and consumers wishes to anything cheaper and cheaper that many companies wouldn't do buisness with Chinese, and if it'd be only cause so many stuff was already stolen by them. But somehow you can make a good deal even if the technology is stolen in the end, cause they'll steal it anyways and then you can better sell it to them before and earn at least something.

I can't speak about China as much as I can about India, but I am sure you are way wrong here too. "Made in China" is not at all a bad tag. I have countless "Made in China" equipment working perfectly fine for years. If they can deliver the same quality at a lesser price, then why not? I am all for it. Being the typical consumer I am, I need bang for my buck. If you can put the product I want on the shelf at a better price, then I will buy your stuff. If not, tough luck, buddy.

No country can survive on its own. Each country needs something or the other from another country. This is a global village. The sooner you realize that, the better.

[dimzon]

I am Indian by origin. Talking about fixing bad code, I can't count the number of times I had to fix crappy code written by Americans. Does this mean that I think that all Americans are bad coders? Of course not.
Just my 2 cent. I have extreme negative expirience working with IBM UDB 7.* for Windows. It's really crappy software! It was written mostly by Indians.

[Doom9]

That is all interesting and all, but what exactly does it have to do with AVS?I wonder about that, too.

[guada 2]

but what exactly does it have to do with AVS?

It difficult to understand Politico-financial sets of strategies of a contry. But CHINA is interesting.
Do a halt and Look a few the WORLD (without CHINA) and CHINA.........

For a so large country, to play in the court of the "BOSS" is indifferent for him.
I think that it waits by leaving time to its Adversaries: do diversion and try the others doesn't disturb it.
China is a Quiet Power.

A day will come and you will say......etc etc...


In short.....
Do you believe this codec is anything with the ON2 VP6 or "VP7" source.

The video standard, referred to as AVS consists of two related parts, a AVS-M for mobile video applications and AVS1.0 for broadcast and DVD.
Today which is us interests: a AVS-M or AVS1.0?

[CruNcher]

ehh sorry but AVS is about saving License Costs it's a patent pool by many companies and institutions that also actively developed on AVC, nothing their is "stollen" AVS only uses those algorithms that are given in this pool for free by the owning companies/institutions read the slides released to understand what it is for :P

[unskinnyboy]

Just my 2 cent. I have extreme negative expirience working with IBM UDB 7.* for Windows. It's really crappy software! It was written mostly by Indians.
Looks like someone misled you. :P

IBM UDB for LUW (Linux, Unix & Windows) is developed in IBM Toronto Labs, Canada and not India.
IBM DB2 for z/OS is developed in IBM Silicon Valley Labs, California, and not India.

IBM Global Services in India does not do any database development (yet). They are mostly involved in support and application development.

I am not sure what you mean by it's a crappy software anyway (regardless of who developed it). You know that it has the fastest growing market share and giving Oracle a good run for its money? Is this a case of a bad DBA blaming his tools? :D

[dimzon]

IBM UDB for LUW (Linux, Unix & Windows) is developed in IBM Toronto Labs, Canada and not India.
This is IBM DB2 UDB development team:
http://img94.echo.cx/img94/4577/fig237he.jpg

Is this a case of a bad DBA blaming his tools? :D
this SQL statement performs exception in IBM DB2 UDB v7.xxx(do not remember exact numbers) and You need to restart it (awesome for enterprise-level DBMS, isn't it)
UPDATE mytable SET mycol=123 WHERE myid IN (1,2,3...350)

Another huge crap is managed ADO.NET provider - thay provide update for it with EXATLY same version number BUT different implementation (some working before functionality is completly broken)

[unskinnyboy]

This is IBM DB2 UDB development team
So lets see...There are 12 people in the picture, of which 5 looks like Indians. And with this, you came to the conclusion that the software was written *mostly* by Indians? :D The rest of them looks like Russians to me. Maybe it was written *mostly* by them. :p And you think such a huge piece of software has just 12 people in the development team?


this SQL statement performs exception in IBM DB2 UDB v7.xxx(do not remember exact numbers) and You need to restart it (awesome for enterprise-level DBMS, isn't it)
UPDATE mytable SET mycol=123 WHERE myid IN (1,2,3...350)

What do you mean it performs an exception? DB2 should throw you an SQL code and an SQL state if that statement failed. What were they? I don't see how it can fail, unless the database has a limit on the amount of elements in the IN list. Also check to see if there is an index defined on myid, because this SQL statement is Stage 1 indexable statement. If there were no index on myid, your statement would end up doing a tablespace scan, and depending on the number of rows in the table, the row length, free space and percentage free parameters between the underlying data pages, the statement may lock the resources and possibly fail due to contention with some other statement. If that's the case, it is true for every database and this is by design, and not a flaw. Last, but not the least, make sure you have all updated fixpacks and maybe upgrade DB2 itself to v8. Or ask someone where you work who knows something about this rather than you yourself poking around in the dark.

Anyway, this is getting downright silly and very much digressive from the main topic. I suggest we stick to the topic.

[dimzon]

Anyway, this is getting downright silly and very much digressive from the main topic. I suggest we stick to the topic.
Ok, just my last 2 cents

What do you mean it performs an exception?
I mean abnormal server process termination. If any user execute such statement DB2 server terminates - great for enterprise-wide RDBMS, isn't it?
Last, but not the least, make sure you have all updated fixpacks and maybe upgrade DB2 itself to v8.
This bug still exists up to 8.x (do not remember actual numbers). Actually I'm not shure it was fixed at all (I'm not working with DB2 last year)
And you think such a huge piece of software has just 12 people in the development team?
Yes, it's really possible!

[unskinnyboy]

I mean abnormal server process termination. If any user execute such statement DB2 server terminates - great for enterprise-wide RDBMS, isn't it?
Ridiculous to the nth degree. If someone executes a simple update statement like that, it will result in an abend? IBM wouldn't have even sold 10 units of their DB2 product if that was the case. Get your DBA to check your database environment and get your Windows sysadmin to check your server environment. The issue is clearly on your side.

IBM should be paying me for defending their product like this. :D

[foxyshadis]

Since this topic is so far off course that I just spotted Atlantis off the bow, I might as well reply in lieu of the eventual split...
Do you think the CFOs of all these big companies would just let their money go to waste on second-rate programmers?
Of course! A number of CFOs would rather give their shareholders what they want to hear than what will make them money, if it'll boost the stock - wall street has had the simple notion of "offshore = instant profits" even after years of evidence that only selective projects, with careful planning and careful management can be effectively outsourced. The same goes for layoffs, fraud, and other management fads.

Otherwise I don't disagree with what you said.

[unskinnyboy]

Of course! A number of CFOs would rather give their shareholders what they want to hear than what will make them money, if it'll boost the stock - wall street has had the simple notion of "offshore = instant profits" even after years of evidence that only selective projects, with careful planning and careful management can be effectively outsourced. The same goes for layoffs, fraud, and other management fads.

Otherwise I don't disagree with what you said.
I have to disagree to the generalization there again. While I cannot vouch for the intelligence level of every CFO of every big-fat corporation, I do think that in light of the recent accounting scandals which rocked corporate America, not a lot of CFOs/CEOs can get by for long without putting actual results (and not just promises) on the table, outsourcing or no outsourcing. And I also don't think every field of work can be outsourced. So I agree to that part of it.

@MoD: please split this thread into a separate topic.

[dimzon]

If someone executes a simple update statement like that, it will result in an abend?
Not such simple - it contains 350 items in IN clause :p

Another point - there are no nested transactions and/or savepoints!
Threre is impossible to use UDF as default value for column
Check constraints syntax will not check until You perform insert into table
Some diagnostic messages are really poor
There are restriction on Index/Constraint name - only 18 chars

[Doom9]

If you look at the Theora specs and then look at the MPEG-4 ASP specs, they appear rather similar.. same goes for VC-1 versus AVC. Whether it makes sense to have different standards that do pretty much the same is up to everyone to decide for themselves.

As far as outsourcing goes, a lot depends on how well an outsourcing company understands the task at hand. It starts with the language, and whatever specs and guidelines are being given. Of course, it's hard for a manager to understand all the little details that make a business work, and if management wants cheap and nothing else, projects will often fail, regardless whether they are performed inhouse or somewhere else.

There are two big advantages to doing things in-house though: you can walk across to hall to scream at people if needs be (or have a quick discussion without having to worry about language barriers and time differences), and people in house can be fired a lot more easily and be replaced than people working for another company. If people in your company owe you a service, they better perform it right or you march into the office of their supervisor for a friendly chat..

Speaking of DBs, why on earth does SQL server not use the ISO standard for week/day of week? Even the bible says that sunday is day 7.. and DATEFIRST only works for DATEPART (or was it DATEDIFF.. but only one of the two) which ensures that you have to jump through hoops when working with dates. For me, that's a broken product, too.

[unskinnyboy]

Not such simple - it contains 350 items in IN clause :p
So? If DB2 cannot handle 350 items in the IN list, it will throw you an error saying it can't. If it allows the SQL statement to run, it means it can take 350 items. In that case, I suggest you read all my posts again where I have suggested looking into indexes or have your DBA/sysadmin look into your enviroments. I don't know what kind of environment you have or whether you are even running the updated software. Heck, you may not even have enough memory to process all that. If it is really a problem, you can raise a problem ticket and have an IBM personnel take a look at it - that's what you should do (make sure you are not using a pirated version. Do Russians use legit software at all? :p), and not go around blaming Indians because your update statement doesn't work.

Another point - there are no nested transactions and/or savepoints!
What does transactions or savepoints got to do with DB2? Isn't this something which should be incorporated in the application logic?

Threre is impossible to use UDF as default value for column
You want to use a UDF as a default value for a column? Does that requirement even make sense?

Check constraints syntax will not check until You perform insert into table
Some diagnostic messages are really poor
There are restriction on Index/Constraint name - only 18 chars
Diagnostic messages are really poor? Do I look like IBM support desk to you? Every database has its pros and cons. What exactly are you trying to prove here? An index name can only have 18 chars because of Indians? Oh btw, I believe the limit of the index/table/tablespace/database length all have been raised in the latest version.

Oracle, I believe has started most of its database development based out of India. I expect you to start a hunger strike in front of their office now. :D

[dimzon]

If it is really a problem, you can raise a problem ticket and have an IBM personnel take a look at it - that's what you should do (make sure you are not using a pirated version. Do Russians use legit software at all? :p), and not go around blaming Indians because your update statement doesn't work.

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