Re: Heart Warming Advertising(please read) -- MIDRANGE-L

Booth,

Your example, although not directly midrange related, does touch upon
the topic of outsourceing.  IMO, that is relevant to not only your and
my futures, but to the future of software developers regardless of
geographic position.

Now I happen to live a stones throw from Seattle where, this week, the
WTO (World Trade Organization) has been meeting.

Passive protesters or anarchists aside, this conference, and this thread
does strike the cord of "globalization" in the technological society the
developed nations are entering.

I commented on another thread on dealing with the "hungry".  I never
said stupid.  It's foolhardy to make the mistake that a person,
elevating from a dollar a day plus lunch, willing to accept $5/hr (16 hr
day) is incapable.

Taking into account the global population, and that the average staff
AS/400 programmer in the US makes $30/hr (plus at least 15% in
benefits/tax burden) it's not that hard for developing nations to put
together a "team" of programmers for the same money.

The clever one of the team may discover this list and post "how do I
read a file in RPG", but the fact that the question was posted means
that the person/team exists.  It's here now.

Did I stress the word -now- enough?

OK, maybe not in your neighborhood today, but when? Tomorrow? Next week?

IMHO, what has made any nation strong is the strength of the
individuals.  If I am dedicated and ambitious enough, I can
create/acquire tools to make my $120/hr cost beneficial.

Example: you can hire me, and rent my back hoe (that I paid for) for
$120/hr or you can hire 24 people at $5/hr.  The end result is a well
dug ditch.  The difference may be in the time of deliverable.  For a
business, each day of delay in deliverable is a day's loss in benefits. 
Timing is everything.

Digging ditches?  That example may not make a whole bunch of difference,
24 cooks in the pot writing software, well I've had 24 programmers and
there's no way on God's earth I would ever let them all work on the same
project at the same time!  That's akin to juggling cats :)

But then again, I've only had to deal with US based programmers.  I must
entertain the thought that other cultures -can- have a team of 24 do my
job.  Successfully.

Welcome to the new millennium.





boothm@earth.goddard.edu wrote:
> 
> True, "you get what you pay for," but lets not forget:  $15-$20 an hour in
> India is damn good wages.
> 
> I competed against the Asian labor market for a while.  I learned one
> thing: the workmanship is not that bad and the labor pool ramps up real
> fast.  I had a cast iron foundry.  White iron (that means melted, in the
> ladle, ready to pour, no labor costs added yet) cost me about $1.00/pound.
>  I could buy finished cast iron products on the docks in any U.S. seaport
> for $0.11/pound  -  less if I bargained.  So, don't be thinking that Asian
> labor will be ineffective and produce bad code.  That generalization will
> not be borne out in the marketplace.
>
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