|
Software Development FEEDBACKIn which readers look to the falling sky, get in an uproar about offshore, and revisit horror. Plus, our Mr. Been goes batty.USE-CASE BIGOTRY
In “Curse of the Living Code” (Oct. 2003), Gary Evans reveals himself to be a use-case bigot (one who believes that no good software was ever created without use cases). He also appears to be unaware of the difference between software methods and software development processes. First, use cases aren’t object-oriented. They’re simply process models, meant to conceal the embarrassing inability of object models to communicate to end users. Topologically, use-case diagrams are equivalent to crippled DeMarco Figure 0 DFDs. (The shapes were evidently changed to create the illusion of innovation.) And the worst aspect of the use-case approach is that it leads to a premature focus on low-level (hence, volatile) details of the user interface. To claim, as Evans does, that dataflow diagrams don’t “relate to the use of the system” is ludicrous. Of course, one can make poor use of dataflow diagrams, just as one can make poor use of use-case diagrams. That’s a different issue. Second, there is no inherent dependence between Essential Systems Analysis (the latest revision of the method that features dataflow diagrams) and the waterfall model. ESA has been used with spiral model processes for over 20 years, just as some organizations have employed use cases with non-iterative processes for many years. Finally, the poor management practices that Evans describes would have been quite adequate to sink his project even if he had brought in Booch, Jacobson and Rumbaugh to write his use cases personally.
M. Wallace With regard to “Aspects: The Missing Link” (Nov. 2003), after the first page of irrelevant history and a second page of blatherisms, I began to be concerned. After the third page, my eyes started rolling back into my head. “Surely,” thought I, “the author will soon present a concrete example.” By the fourth page I had trouble staying conscious, but hope for an example of “aspect programming” kept me going. Page five ... still nothing. Page six ... hope nearly gone. Page seven ... whoa! ...there is no seventh page! Six pages of buzzwords and not a single, solitary example of where you would use this, what problem it solves or why it’s any better than what we current have! Incredible. Your editors need to be outsourced.
Dr. Carl Dreher
Ivar Jacobson replies: Thank you for publishing Ivar Jacobson’s two articles on Use Cases and AOP (“Aspects: The Missing Link,” Nov. 2003, and “A Case for Aspects,” Oct. 2003), as well as Gregor’s column (“Testing the Waters,” Crosscut, Nov. 2003) devoted to the subject. I believe that AOP is an important new trend in the industry that will help us write better software. Ivar’s ideas for reworking use case-oriented development as an AOP approach have a lot of appeal. There are many practical issues to resolve before it becomes viable, but it’s worth investigating, as the potential is great. Gregor’s inaugural column is excellent, reflecting the pragmatic approach that has made AspectJ such an initial success. I hope many developers heed his advice.
Dean Wampler I have a question regarding the “years of experience” categories on the salary survey. If I’ve been an application designer for 13 years, but a manager of application designers for two years, then do my “years of experience” total 13 or 2? Are the “years of experience” referring to the category (application design) or to the staff/management designation?
Name withheld Alexandra Weber Morales replies: There are two answers to your question, depending on your point of view. From the perspective of the person taking the survey, you’re first asked to choose whether you’re currently staff or management, then what your title (say, VP) and field of development are (say, application development or project management or QA), and then how many years of experience you have overall. In such a case, you’d answer your total years in the field—and from your letter, I’m not sure if that’s 15 (13+2) or 13 (13 including 2). From the perspective of the person comparing his salary to the survey results, you could compare your two years of management experience to the salaries of other new managers, but in keeping with how the question was asked, it actually tracks overall years in IT, not specific title or development area. Therefore, you’ve highlighted an imprecision in how we collect the data that leaves such comparisons open for interpretation. I hope this helps. Let me know if you wish to discuss it further.
Alexandra Weber Morales Thanks for the reply. I’m indeed trying to see how my own salary stacks up against National and Regional averages reported in the survey. I’ve been in the field a total of 13 years, 11 as “staff” and two more as “manager.” I’m in the Midwest ,Ohio, am 37 years old, and would consider my primary field application design (end-to-end design of in-house applications, responsible for tasks/management of direct reports, but not responsible for any budgets). I also am, if I’m reading the salary survey correctly, woefully and criminally underpaid. Yikes! Thanks very much for the survey. My plan is to use this year and last year’s surveys as part of the basis for argument for a substantial “market correction” as reviews come up next month.
Name withheld SEEKING STABILITY In your article “What Are U.S. Developers Worth?” (Nov. 2003), you state “The most volatile jobs? Programming or software engineering, network design and Web development.” Well, what about the opposite? As a programmer, developing application software, I ask you: What are the most stable and dependable jobs? A second question: In your editorial, “The New Brain Drain” (Nov. 2003), you say “Lobbying groups pushing for more guest technical-worker visas continue to lament scientifically and mathematically inept American college graduates. Even in a ‘jobless recovery,’ as this period has been so aptly labeled, hiring managers anticipate that hundreds of thousands of jobs will go unfilled due to lack of skilled American applicants.” Lack of skilled applicants? How come I keep reading horror stories of programmers with 15+ yrs. of top-notch experience not finding jobs? I’d like to try to connect the dots. Jobs are lost, but positions are going unfilled. Can’t programmers retrain to fill these positions, rather than retraining to be teachers, pharmacists, nurses or Wal-Mart employees? Finally, you conclude your editorial with “Do we want to work in America, the convenience store, or America, the land of innovation? It’s our choice.” Who’s in a position to make this choice? The CEO who can look long-term rather than short term? How can I influence this choice?
Steve Bassett Alexandra Weber Morales replies: You ask some good questions. I’ll try to answer some. With regard to volatile jobs, that sentence was in fact a quote from a different study—not ours—that found that software engineering jobs were currently at greater risk for outsourcing than, say, help desks or call centers--primarily because the call centers were part of the first wave of offshore outsourcing. Which jobs are steadiest? I don’t have an answer to that question yet, but I’m researching it actively. Many factors contribute to whether your job is safe; clearly, not all IT is being shipped out—yet. Your sense of your employer’s direction and the importance of your department's work to the company’s fortunes is probably as valuable as a statistical analysis would be at this point. You wonder about the disconnect between what the lobbyists and the experienced programmers are saying, and you’re not the only one: Several readers have written me to point that out. Again, I plan to research this a bit more. I printed the statement that Americans are deficient in math and science as gospel, but in fact that may not be true. Finally, you’re curious about what you can do. I was raised to believe that we live in the world’s first and finest democracy, meaning that we each carry a great responsibility to determine our country’s course. Granted, our relationship with local and national government is increasingly poisoned by the power of moneyed interests, and the IT industry is no different. It’s up to developers to become a vocal constituency that makes its concerns about the future of domestic IT known to Congress. Write your congressperson and your senator, or give their offices a call. It’s a satisfying feeling to speak with your elected representatives and give them a piece of your mind. Feel free to keep us apprised of what form of activism you choose, and what comes of it. [back to top]MISSING THE POINT? I’m writing in response to “The New Brain Drain.” I thought it was fair and balanced, but you missed several important points, which, in your defense, are very easy to miss. First of all, your discussion completely ignores the very notion of product lifecycle. Every industry matures sooner or later; products are commoditized, margins shrink, innovation moves from product development first to marketing, then to distribution, and, yes, wages of production workers decline, while their ranks thin and required skill level gradually falls to that attainable by a high-school dropout. (Witness the fate of American agriculture, which still remains the most productive agriculture in the world, while the median chicken grower, according to a 1995 study by Louisiana Tech University, owns three poultry houses, which cost about $150,000 each, but, being deeply in debt, earns $12,000 a year.) You, however, seem to imply that the software industry is going to remain an early-growth industry forever; it won’t. A few years back, Paul Krugman wrote on behalf of an imaginary protagonist living in 2096:
“...the long-ago prophets of the information age seemed to have forgotten basic economics. When something becomes abundant, it also becomes cheap. A world awash in information is one in which information has very little market value. In general, when the economy becomes extremely good at doing something, that activity becomes less, rather than more, important. Second, before looking at India and outsourcing, one needs to more closely examine Europe and open source. I co-manage a small hedge fund and, consequently, develop my own applications. My cost savings from deploying on an open-source platform over the last couple of years amounted to thousands of dollars (and mine is a single-developer shop), which is lost revenue to the U.S. software industry caused by nothing but the fact that Europe, with its combination of good educational system and chronic youth unemployment, is full of young people with lots of skills and lots of time to spare. And, finally, it’s ironic that you felt compelled to contrast Wal-Mart and innovation. The truth is, Wal-Mart is one of the most innovative retailers in the modern world (should you insist that Marks and Spencer is number one, I’ll give you that, but you’ll have to agree that Wal-Mart runs a pretty close second). What makes it doubly ironic is that Wal-Mart’s success to a great extent is due to early and enthusiastic adoption of information technology. And, yes, the benefits of Wal-Mart’s innovation have by and large accrued to its customers and shareholders, not its rank-and-file employees.
THE MISSING MIDDLE CLASS I read “The New Brain Drain” with great interest. I’m probably older than you by some years, because I can remember a time when the United States had a solid middle-class base. As more and more jobs both in the manufacturing sector and the business sector are outsourced, we are fast becoming a nation of have and have-nots, and are too dependent on other nations for our goods and services. This trend toward bigger and bigger profit margins and out-of-control corporate greed may be what sends this country spiraling into class warfare. I am truly concerned, but don’t see resolution to this problem in the near future. I just hope it won’t be too late.
Barbara Raddatz
A BUMPY FIELD
Regarding “The New Brain Drain,” there never was, isn’t now
and never will be a “level playing field” in real life. It’s
a theoretical concept. People in Washington use the phrase to give consituents
a warm, fuzzy feeling. As a concept, it is a cousin to the term socialism in
that it, too, is a great concept; it just doesn’t work in the real world.
Using the phrase level playing field shows an ignorance of reality.
James A. Olson SECURITY GONE MISSING First of all, forgive my English; I’m one of the many H-1 Visa software developers who have chosen to come here, in the land of technology, years ago. I’m not from India or China but from Italy, a country losing day by day any technology skill, so the last thing I like to see here is the process to outsource knowledge. I know the last result of this process ... a nation without knowledge, depending totally on others. To me, the U.S. is (or was?) a symbol of technology and innovation, a “holy land,” the only place where a developer can dream to be. So here I am. My question is related to an aspect that I missed reading or hearing about: security. Every day, since 9/11, important people stress about the Western world’s security from terrorist attacks. A terrorist attack does not necessarily need bombs to do damage. Now, one of a country’s most vital sectors, IT, is sent piece by piece to places where, for a terrorist, it’s incredibly easy to infiltrate and make damage (not all terrorists are dumb, illiterate people). Let’s think about critical software and hardware used today in our society. Banks, transports, airports, controls, energy, and so on ... in future, these systems could be developed/mantained in countries far from the US. A bug/virus/SW bomb or simply a false information from a remote help desk could easily cause billions of dollars in damage and put down an entire nation, only because in those countries the situation is hardly under control. It’s hard to control the situation here, so how easy is it to control the situation there? How these companies can just ignore this problem? For every IT worker laid off in the U.S. in the name of the profit, in a far less developed country a probable terrorist can take his place, or workers can be more easily forced by terrorists to do damages—or simply the U.S. will lose power, depending more and more on other countries. Is this the idea of “power”? Am I too paranoiac? Maybe ... but our society is totally based on technology. Didn’t the people who decide to send the work to far countries learn anything from 9/11 ?
“Made in U.S.A.” should be much more than a marketing label. The
real power is knowledge, and many companies are willing to sacrifice this knowledge
in name of the profit. To me, this is foolishness. KEEPING THE KEYS “The New Brain Drain” really struck a chord with me. It’s a topic that seems to not be getting enough attention at the moment and to be honest, I’m am very fearful of the consequences. I am a 15+-year IT veteran with a M.B.A. in information systems. I’ve kept my skills current from mainframes to the Web. I’ve allegedly done all the “right” things career-wise. Yet I’m struggling to just keep a contract job in today’s economy. Since the bubble burst, I’ve worked in several large companies, and see this downsizing as a real threat to the U.S. workforce. Furthermore, it’s spreading to other areas besides technology—now banks are outsourcing accounting and financial analysis to India and other countries overseas. My concerns are several. First of all, this is happening seemingly in the name of “global competition.” Well, I don’t think that there’s any “competition” at all going on here—it’s more like dumping. How can I possibly compete with someone who has a decent skill set but charges a company a fraction of the salary I need to survive in the U.S. economy? Corporate executives (especially the global companies) are so focused on the near-term bottom line that the fact that I can offer a system of higher quality doesn’t matter. I’m just too darn expensive, as far as these execs are concerned. I sat in an IT meeting at a large national bank in which the execs had the audacity to say they were much more impressed by what they saw in the offshore resources than what they experienced locally—and that’s after my team had one of the most successful product launches the bank had ever seen. Again, cost was singled out as one of the main issues. The handwriting was on the wall: right after that meeting, our team was asked to train the offshore resources so they could continue our hard-fought success!
First, what do I and others get “retrained” into if our highly
skilled jobs are offshored? We’ve already seen at least 10 percent of
IT jobs offshored permanently. I live in the Southeast, which has a decent amount
of high tech. Our area is being very hard hit in the manufacturing/textile sectors.
Many companies are either going out of business or are moving offshore. Our
government then basically says, “Hey, no problem, we'll retrain you;”
typically in IT. But guess what? The technology jobs are being offshored, as
well. In case after case, these unfortunate factory workers have gone through
IT training only to find that there is no work, and to survive, they can only
find work at Wal-Mart or Home Depot at half their original salaries. In some
While we may be lulled into thinking that this is primarily affecting the blue-collar level as in the past, we’re now seeing offshore mania make a significant impact in the white-collar realm, in accounting functions, financial analysis, and call centers, to name a few. So what happens to the overall U.S. economy when the major tax-paying base, namely the somewhat affluent middle class, is noticeably impacted? Remember Tom Peters’ prediction that 75 percent of white-collar positions in the U.S. will be eliminated? That may be overstating the case, but what if it’s even close to that? I keep seeing a definite downward pressure on my salary, yet chief executive salaries continue to rise at a much larger rate. We’re the people getting the work done; not them—we’re the soldiers in the trenches slogging through the unrealistic deadlines, the ill-defined vision, the ill-conceived strategies, finally getting something out the door only to be rewarded with having our positions eliminated and replaced by cheaper offshore resources. The negative impact on morale is tremendous. Yet I keep seeing the press and our government quoting statistics that don’t seem to reflect this negative impact. I remember back in early 2001, the same sources were saying, “Gee, the statistics don’t show that we’re going into a recesssion". Meanwhile, I was out there trying to find a job, as my company was going bankrupt and I could tell we were rolling into a recession. Don’t these sources realize that the data on which these statistics are based could be six months old or more; historic in nature and not good predictors of the future? I’m really afraid of what might happen with this offshore movement. It might not be a huge trend now, but the likes of China and Romania haven’t really geared up yet. What if they opened up offshore capability at half of what India is offering? I shudder to think of the consequences. Ford just announced a $1.5 billion investment in building manufacturing facilities in China. Great for Ford, but not so great for the 6,000 employees they just laid off in the U.S. and Europe. At the risk of appearing overly flag-waving, I think the biggest fear I have is we are losing the passion for doing things in this country, preferring to become just the middleman, a broker whose primary goal is just to sell and make money. We seem to be moving away from doing something to just managing others offshore who will “do the doing.” Why? Is it simply because it’s more “cost-effective”? I, for one, prefer to be a doer. I don’t want to be a “do nothing” broker! You say that education is key. And, while I agree with you in principle, there is more that is necessary, and there has to be a return on that investment that is attractive. Why is there a dwindling of high-tech students in our universities? I have kids, and my oldest child, who will be college-bound in a few short years, looks at what I do, sees what corporate America is doing to us and says “No way!” What incentive do our children have to apply themselves in a challenging IT curriculum at the university to wind up begging for a job in IT that pays less or the same than that of someone without a higher education—or have to compete with offshore resources at half their required salary? You can produce the finest technologists in the world (and we do), but if they can’t find work here, what good is it? I truly fear for this outsourcing trend if left to the whims of board rooms of global corporations. These global conglomerates don’t care about the impact they have in any particular country. The people who live there sure do, though. Even though my ramblings are mainly from the U.S. perspective, this is not something unique to America: I have friends in Europe who see the same trends in their countries. What happens when our innovations, done offshore, are copied, refined and produced at much lower costs, making the originating company irrelevant? We see this trend in China now. They’re already working on versions of Linux to directly compete against Windows. Since it’s open source–based, the possibility exists that they’ll offer it for free! Countries like China don't give a damn about patent infringement; they don’t care about predatory business practices.They don’t care as much about the impact of their factories on their environment or providing safe environments for their workers. They don’t play by our business rules. So I come back to my original question: What does the U.S. want to stand for? If we wish to continue to be one of the most innovative nations in the world, perhaps we need to follow the space program’s pattern that put someone on the moon: create a national push with serious resources behind it. Corporations who operate in America need to realize that if this offshore trend is left unchecked, there won’t be anyone left who can afford their products here. Government needs to realize the impact of this on their tax base. I don’t want to get to the point where if I want to work in IT, I need to migrate to another country where I can live cheaper so I can charge less just to get work. It’s about time businesses and our government wake up and realize that offshoring can be useful when implemented in very specific, complimentary ways (maintenance, support). But if left unchecked, it could result in disaster. We need to keep the keys to the kingdom closer to home! Sorry for the long, rambling diatribe. I’m just frustrated by this whole situation. What do you hear from others? Am I overstating the case? I hope so.
Name Withheld LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE As an IT professional involved in system analysis, project management, system development, I was intrigued with “The New Brain Drain.” As a father of a computer engineering student at LSU, I hope that my daughter will be in a position to find a good job when she graduates. I hear that there are plenty of jobs out there, but at the same time, there does not seem to be the aggressive hiring by firms where those openings exist.
Tommy Chatelain One of the arguments made for outsourcing is that it helps poor countries develop. That seems to assume trade (with high-wage countries) is the only way for a low-wage country to develop. Untrue. For example, Henry Ford realized that U.S. workers, in order to buy his cars, needed to make good wages. So he paid them well above (50 to 100 percent above) the going rate. Along with the assembly line and other techniques that caused productivity to soar, this helped create the consumer-based economy we now enjoy (which is based on high productivity and high wages). Third-world countries could do the same. Of course, since most American executives and economists seem to have forgotten what Henry Ford knew, it’s unlikely third-world governments know it. Or, if they do, they understand the potential a consumer-based economy has for democratizing their countries, and want no part of it. Also, outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries threatens to stall the capitalist system. Mature industries try to become competitive by cutting labor costs. They cut costs by raising productivity. Higher productivity and lower labor costs means they can cut prices and sell more product than their competitors, or keep prices the same and raise their profits. Either way, other companies—in order to compete—follow, and raise their productivity. The result is lower costs or higher wages, or both, which puts more money in consumers’ pockets. This leads to demand for new products, which leads to new industries and new jobs—the classic capitalist cycle.
Outsourcing to low-wage countries means two things. First, companies don’t have to raise productivity, stalling the capitalist cycle. Second, jobholders in low-wage countries don’t make enough to buy much from the U.S. The result is a net loss of jobs, which threatens to kill demand for products, which also stalls the capitalist cycle. If enough jobs are lost, we could have a deflationary spiral similar to that of the Great Depression.
Outsourcing to high-wage countries is no big deal. This means competition on grounds of quality or productivity—a good thing. And the jobholders in those countries can turn around and buy products from high-wage countries. Jobholders in low-wage countries can only buy from other low-wage countries; they don’t make enough to do otherwise.
If we allow outsourcing to low-wage countries, we’re investing (in terms of current lost productivity and lost jobs) in hopes of a future return (eventual democratization and prosperity in those countries, resulting in greater demand for our products). That’s not necessarily bad, but we need to estimate the return on investment. How much do we give up now? What do we get in return? When do we get it? We can tolerate a little downward pressure on wages and a little upward pressure on unemployment for the chance of a future return. To my knowledge, though, no one has tried to calculate these effects.
And despite decades of trade with Mexico, that country doesn’t show many signs of reform. We can say much the same for Indonesia and China. If trade alone were a guarantee of reforming a country, we could have stopped sanctions against Iraq and traded with them, instead of invading. While I don’t advocate invading China or Mexico or Indonesia, I think the leaders of those countries are no more interested in democratizing than Saddam was.
This means that, if we decide to allow outsourcing to a low-wage country, we need to make some kind of evaluation that they’re likely to reform, we need to periodically assess whether they have done so, and we need to calculate the costs to the U.S. We should have sunset provisions: Every five years, we have to renew our trade policy with that country. If they haven’t made sufficient progress, we don’t renew our trade with them. And it wouldn’t hurt to tie trade to some kind of reforms—no reforms, no trade. I believe this is what the European Union did with Spain and Portugal, before those countries could be admitted to the E.U. (and the wage differential between Spain/Portugal and the rest of the E.U. was considerably smaller than between the U.S. and Mexico.)
How do I suspect that outsourcing to low-wage countries has hurt? In the past 30 years, U.S. productivity has risen by 50 percent. But wages and benefits haven’t risen nearly as much—no more than 20 percent, probably more like 10. The minimum wage (a little over five dollars an hour now) would be seven or eight had it kept up with inflation; had it kept up with productivity it would be 11 or 12. Something is putting downward pressure on wages, and I believe there are four factors: outsourcing to low-wage countries, a low minimum wage, excess immigration and overpopulation.) Giving large corporations carte blanche to outsource jobs to low-wage countries in return for a vague promise of future prosperity makes no more sense than allowing John Ashcroft or Janet Reno to take away our civil liberties in return for a vague promise of reducing terrorism. If you’re really a masochist, and want even more of my views on this subject, go to http://home.earthlink.net/~kstengel226/astro/trek_econ/ . (These views, of course, are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.)
Karl Stengel SKILLED, BUT NOT CHEAP Regarding “The New Brain Drain,” from personal experience in the high-tech industry in the areas of electrical and software engineering, the issue of the “...lack of skilled American applicants” is completely without merit: There is no lack of skilled American applicants. What is lacking is cheap skilled American applicants—cheap is the key word. Many American business people look at only the cost of the “raw resources” that it takes to produce their product, and turn a blind eye to the fact that it takes a much less skilled manager in their bean-counter role. It is trivial to send out RFQs and then simply choose the “raw resource” based on the lowest bid. It will be interesting to hear how loud the American business people complain if and when company boards of directors really look at the price they’re paying for American managers versus what they could be paying for managers from other countries. Another significant fact is that fewer and fewer American companies are willing to support their employees’ continuing education Many of the companies still give lip service to having that policy, but it’s very difficult, if not almost impossible, for many of their employees to actually take advantage of this “benefit.”
Jim Prewitt
THE “COOL” FACTOR “The New Brain Drain” touched upon some very unsettling aspects of offshore outsourcing success. However, I predict that the offshore outsourcing bubble will burst in about six months. Too many projects are shipped offshore without a lot of thought. A number of them will fail, not because the offshore vendors will fail at the technology, but because communication will break down from organizations here. After all,when the business and IT folks are in the same building,communication broke down and business often complained about IT not getting it. What makes us think that this will work when we have a highly demotivated skeleton IT crew talking to people continents away, quite often to people in another company? You briefly touched upon the core problem that needs to be addressed if we want to solve this problem: the educational investment other countries like India and China are making. This is not just a question of money alone, but a deep analysis of cultural attitudes toward math and science education, especially women and minorities. Step into any offshore vendor’s offices or any engineering college in India and you’ll be astounded at the ratio of women to men—sometimes it’s higher than 50 percent women. It scares me to read about escalating college costs, binge drinking in colleges and colleges spending your hard-earned money on climbing walls and swimming pools. Emphasis on extracurricular activities need to be just that—extra. We really need to pay attention to the fact that more than half of our technology patents are filed by foreign-born scientists who fill our graduate schools of science and technology. This is not an accident. A math and science culture needs to be nourished from primary education all the way to higher education. So what are the answers? A cultural shift in attitudes toward math and science education. These need to be “cool” again. A college education is an investment the government needs to make heavily, just as we invested in interstate highway infrastructure during the ’50s. College education should not be that expensive; making it so undermines our prosperity. We need to figure out something like the G.I. bill that helps college students (perhaps based on economic need) get a decent technical education without excessive debt loads. Having grown up and worked in India and here, I can assure you that in tough times like these, offshore outsourcing gets an inordinate amount of attention and blame.However the key asset of this country is an openness to trying new technologies, a lack of concern about the age of a person who offers good ideas, and the availability of capital to try out new ideas. Many older societies in Europe and Asia are burdened with an older culture that inhibits innovation—witness Japan. For a country that can endlessly improve on things, completely new ways of thinking are rare. Innovation is the key to prosperity, and hope that the economy turns around, spurring venture and corporate investments in new areas, creating technologies that the whole world wants but does not have. Those are my two cents!
Nari Kannan NOT USING MY RELIGION
Laurie O’Connell asks “Is Nothing Sacred?” in her November Deadline article about how a company used the image of the Dalai Lama in some promotional materials. I rather suspect that most of your readers aren’t Buddhists, and don’t consider the Dalai Lama sacred. The article offers very little to your readers and was a poor choice for SD magazine. It would have been more appropriate for a Buddhist-interest magazine.
Kevin Braun
As we here at SD are interested in all aspects of the industry, I wrote the article because our editorial staff and many in the software community were surprised at the ethics (or lack thereof) of a software company exploiting any religious figure as a marketing ploy. [back to top]ANGERED BY INEFFECTUALITY Your editorial makes me very angry. I’m not at all offended by its content or its message. Instead, I’m angered by its truth and by my lack of power, as an individual, to significantly change that truth. Believe me when I say I take this issue very personally. After having weathered several mergers and acquisitions, I opted to become self employed and started my own software company, which produces products for the manufacturing industry. The upside of my decision is that I will no longer be the “victim” of an employer’s bad decisions. The downside is that my company is struggling because the manufacturing sector is experiencing similar offshore outsourcing. In a perfect world, outsourcing would not be a bad thing. I’d love to spread the wealth and allow everyone to have similar economic status. However, our world isn’t perfect, and today’s outsourcing is a bad thing because it’s uncontrolled and because the playing field is unfair. As Americans, we can’t compete with the cheap labor of third-world countries, and our government does not fairly tax imported American products made offshore. The result is a net flow of jobs offshore and greater profits for the already wealthy.
Can we prevent America from becoming one gigantic Wal-Mart? If we act individually,
the answer is a resounding NO. If we act in unity, the answer is YES, but victory
will not come without a fight. There’s big money behind the outsourcing
effort. Are you ready for a revolution? Victory might require just that. BEYOND THE SOUND BITE I want to thank you for “The New Brain Drain.” In just a few short paragraphs you described the problem boundaries without resorting to the fast-food, hot-button sound bite statements people are so prone to making these days. You ask whether we want to work “... in America, the convenience store, or America, the land of innovation.” Hopefully, your rhetorical question isn’t lost on your readers. Another way to phrase the question is this: “Do we want to become a nation of morons?” With many writers in the popular press and the minions of “ditto-heads” so willing to listen, I often wonder whether it’s too late. We already live in a nation of morons. Socially and politically, I lean far to the left (and am acutely aware that our political system has dumbed itself down to the lowest possible—well, moron). As a tried and true leftie, I think it’s our collective responsibility to provide strong education to all those who will consume it. But there are two points to consider:
There are very few truly unique computing problems left to solve. We keep molding the computing clay into different shapes, but it’s been some time since we’ve created something truly new. As such, we absolutely must stay open to innovations in new areas. We must be willing to continue our own educational process. Note that I’m not suggesting we work ourselves to death; just that we keep open minds. From this perspective, one understands the importance of educating those around you, like your kids, rather than training them; and realizing, for ourselves as software professionals, that computing for the sake of computing adds little to the advancement of the human condition. One gets training to learn how to use a can opener, or to use the right Java syntax. One seeks education to get about the business of understanding, defining and solving the ever-evolving problems in our world. We as software engineers must continue our own education to get about the business of innovating rather than regurgitating. Creativity is and has been our gig (for the recent past). The fact that it has emerged in computing is a sidebar. The valuable quantity is the creativity itself, not the medium or arena through which it is expressed. The creativity gig is ours to keep or lose. Yet with either outcome, the notion of blame is irrelevant. Neither creativity nor knowledge is confined by national boundaries. As you point out, the leveling playing field is a natural process—it necessarily will happen. People everywhere should get training to use the products of our creativity, whether it’s a new can opener or a new computing system. It’s not enough for us to hold our position, particularly after the flash of inspiration, innovation and creativity has passed. We need to invent viable and sustainable new positions. This means we must keep our minds open to new and emerging fields: places to use our creativity and to improve ourselves in the process. Renewable energy, anyone? Sustainable food production? Solving the population explosion? Even seemingly mundane notions in quantum computing could absolutely transform our existence. I’m continually surprised at the number of people in our field who don’t want to learn a new language (logical or otherwise) because it doesn’t advance their immediate career goals. Why do you want to limit yourself? The point is, we have to be hungry to learn—for ourselves—every day. Our children, peers and fellows citizens on the street will feed on our enthusiasm. It’s our responsibility to fulfill, and there is no one else to blame if we fail.
Name withheld TIME FOR THE VOODOO STICK? I agree with everything you say in “The New Brain Drain.” I think our politicians and companies haven’t done enough to retrain our displaced IT workforce. It used to be the boom that was heard around the world : America developed the Internet with networking technology and spiffy dot-com software meant to revolutionize the way information was being delivered to Web surfers and everyday people. Now all we can say is that Silicon Valley and other high-tech areas with former dot-com companies are more like ghost towns. I live in Silicon Valley, so I saw many colleagues and friends get pink slips. As a member of IEEE, I can see the political arm that is pro-U.S. engineer labor force. But again, no one has a policy or idea about what to do with displaced IT workers. Either we have government sponsor more retraining into security, teachers, nanotechnology, or …
I hope someone takes notice or there will be another big change besides Schwarzenegger
being governor of California. Maybe it’s time for Ross Perot to use his
voodoo stick again. IS OPEN SOURCE THE ISSUE? In “The New Brain Drain,” Ms. Morales refers to “displaced IT workers” as if we were laid-off factory or farm workers. We are instead highly trained, broadly experienced professionals whose every assignment is uniquely different from the one before. In effect, we are engineers, and the solution to and prevention of being “displaced” is not some government retraining program, but individual continuing professional education. It’s our professional responsibility continually to improve and broaden our knowledge and skills, and the educational innovation of online courses is an excellent way to fulfill that responsibility. Also, should one find oneself laid off, it may be necessary to be willing to move or telecommute to where the jobs are. I’m less concerned about offshore outsourcing and guest technical worker visas (because they too want to be paid to develop software) than I am about the vast army of open-source programmers willing to develop and debug software for free. I can compete against offshore and guest workers through professional training and experience, quality workmanship and an ability to relate culturally to stakeholders; how can I compete against high-quality software downloadable for free, source code included? I fear that the economic pressure of free open-source software will make software development a minimum-wage job, even for projects that cannot (or should not) be done in the open-source paradigm.
Norman Hines APPLES TO APPLES A simple fix to this problem would be subsidies similar to the ones used to compete against unfair price competition from overseas vendors. This would level the playing field (price wise) and then we could compare apples to apples. I believe these are currently used for agricultural products and possibly others. I, too, am currently out of work. I’ve been programming since 1984, and I have never seen this industry in this shape.
Just my two cents’ worth,
U.S. WAGES FOR ALL "Death of the American Programmer?" Not so fast. Maybe Ed Yourdon knew something that we didn’t. Regarding “The New Brain Drain,” this topic has been around since 1997. Starting about that time was the Y2K problem. Many companies were in the planning stages of the fixes. The Law of Supply and Demand was beginning to take effect, as the number of programmers (finite) was “wooed away” from current employers at higher and higher salaries. It reared its ugly head when CEOs publicly stated that they wouldn’t pay “exorbitant” salaries for programming talent.Lobbyists persuaded Congress that we needed to import less expensive labor to do the job. I saw a manager go to India and bring back 50 programmers and their families. 10 months later 20 of them “disappeared” for higher-paying jobs elsewhere in America. They made half of what I made. Later, much to that company’s credit, the management helped the local university start up a programming training curriculum for local “talent.” I saw hundreds of people take a six-question test to determine if they should be one of the lucky 25 contestants for the two-year associate degree. At another company, I witnessed a department of 60 people fired, and their work was sent to India. The irony of that occurrence was that more than 20 of the fired programmers were from India. I’m just one person. Multiply this type of anecdotal observation 100,000 times. It does n’t take a rocket scientist to figure that American Business, American Management and American Politicians have collectively shot ourselves in the foot with H1-B violations. We never did need 161,000 immigrants a year in the computer industry, yet we sanctioned this enormous number of influx for more than four years!! That’s 500,000 Americans out of work. These are Americans who would work hard, make purchases locally, and pay taxes to federal, state and local governments. Senators, take note. Just as water seeks its lowest level, so does the demand for low-wage workers. All other things being equal, American managers will gladly pay less money to do the same or comparable job. It has been this way for over 150 years. I work, and have worked, with many people who come from somewhere other than America. I enjoy it. I like to find out more about them. I like to try to speak to them in their own language; as a matter of respect. But it doesn’t mean that I enjoy seeing them have to work for less, nor does it mean that I enjoy seeing my job sent overseas to someone who will work for less because his government won’t enact the necessary policies to allow his wages to rise. Either Americans will be forced to work oat Asian wages at $0.10 per hour or we’ll be forced to protect ourselves. Since companies have been given tax breaks for moving work and factories overseas for 10 years, maybe the American people should demand that Congress pass legislation mandating any company doing business in America must pay American wages to their workers, no matter where the worker is from. And furthermore, they should pay American wages to any overseas worker who does work for the company. Any violation would engender a $100,000 fine per occurrence. For the overseas workers, healthcare would be excluded, as would Social Security, so American managers would still get off cheap. That law would end the reverse brain drain because it would cost just as much, if not more for American companies to use foreign cheap labor; which, of course, would not be cheap any more; they’d be paid a decent living wage. American companies would begin looking around in their own communities for new hires. Oh, sure, CEOs would scream bloody murder that we were destroying our competition. Baloney. Thanks to NAFTA and the WTO, we can no longer erect trade barriers. Either Americans accept third- and fourth-world salaries, or we convince American managers to hire at home.
Claire Jones WORK AROUND THE CLOCK
I’m surprised that even more jobs have not moved offshore. I’m a white male in my middle ’40s. I got into computer programming in the early ’80s when it was really cool. Back then everyone had tons of energy, and we were literally working all hours of the day and night to get our jobs done—Not so much because we had to, but because we wanted to. It was fun to get out the latest computer program or other technologically neat project. Today, I see most of my contemporaries in the 9-to-5 syndrome, more likely the 9–to-4 or even 3 syndrome. They can’t wait to get away from the office and get to their golf game or their outside business or whatever they’d rather be doing. On the other side, I see people from overseas, India, China, Russia and other countries in the office early and staying late. Both men andwomen from these cultures value education and family values. These people seem hungry and want to work, while most (not all) CaucasianAmericans are trying to figure out how to get more pay and benefits for lesswork. In my observation, this is why jobs are going overseas. Americanworkers care less and less every day about their jobs and more about theirleisure time. When Americans focus more on competing in themarketplace than they do about their leisure activities, things will start toturn around, and not before. I believe that the affluence of mostAmericans has made them lazy and unwilling to do what’s necessary to compete. In the current generation of 18 to25 year olds, little that I seecontradicts this perception. I have a daughter who’s a freshman in college.Recently asked to go on a “Road Trip” to an away college footballgame by her friends. She turned her friends down indicating she had to stayat the dorm and study. She was almost laughed off campus by her friends. Most of hercontemporaries BELIEVE that the primary purpose of college is to drink, have funand party. Education has nothing to do with the process. This expectation ofhaving a good time without having to work for it seems to pervade Americansociety. It is very much handed down to these younger people from theirparents and the general society around them. My software engineering skills are self taught and I hold a position as asystems analyst for a major company. I go to college nights, working towarda bachelors then ultimately a masters degree in computer information systems. Most of the people I work around think I am nuts for working sohard. I am derided for being a brown nose and sucking up to companymanagement. In addition to my studies I work on developing web pages forfree to sharpen my web development skills. Again, people in my communitythink I am silly for wasting my time when I could be off doing other things. Ithink that I am just being smart. I know that I have to compete for my job ona daily basis. I have to stay sharp and on top of most technologies if I expectto keep my job. I need to offer a service worth the salary I command if Iexpect to be able to maintain that income level. For that I am labeled a workaholic. I don’t think so. I just see it as purecapitalism. Why should my company pay me $35 an hour to perform aservice they can buy from someone else for $20 an hour or even less. If Iexpect that wage, then I need to be able to provide that level of value to mycompany. America has no guarantees. It is indeed the most wonderful placein the world to live for those who see its opportunities for what they are (achance). Look at the western Europeans who emigrated here after World War II, then later those from the far east, and today, those fromIndia and other parts of Asia. The people who are successful are those whoare willing to do what it takes to succeed and have no expectation that aleisurely lifestyle is their right. For Americans to change the shift of jobs toother countries, we need to collectively decide that we are going to get off ofour back sides and compete. This means do what we have to do on the joband in the classroom to best our competitors. If we don't, we will slip further nd further down the scale of affluence. There is a very simple analogy from agriculture that states this verysuccinctly. You reap what you sow. If a farmer decides not to plant hiscrops, he can't expect to reap a harvest. This is just as true in informationtechnology, or manufacturing or ... whatever as it is in agriculture. Thanksfor engaging in the discussion.
Mark H.
INDUSTRIOUS REVOLUTION I liked ”The New Brain Drain.” I can’t disagree with anything you said or implied. I do, however have a few comments. Reason Magazine has a tagline “Free Minds and Free Markets.” That tagline is what is going to save us as U.S. tech workers. I am sure when loom technology got out of England, the whole vibrant textile industry was convinced it was dead. It wasn’t. It continued to compete, and even adopted variants of technology newly developed in the US. In the late ’80s or early ’90s, there was a book published called “Japan’s Software Factories.” It made a compelling case for the likelihood that Japan (not India) would take over all serious software development, because Japan would apply the same productivity and quality tools to software as it did successfully to motorcycles, consumer electronics and to cars. But then the internet happened. The compelling case was crushed overnight. Our uncanny ability to innovate is the core of our success. We will continue to innovate, and we will successfully compete against $15/hour software engineers, not by driving the cost of our labor down, but by finding new places to focus our efforts. Retraining and primary education are where significant investment should be made, as you said. Because many will be displaced, I would also invest in making the entire workforce more adaptable to career change. The idea that any tech worker could have the same job for 30 or more years is no longer possible in a global economy. Jobs are born and die faster than the career span of any individual. I would also make recycled computers available to all school children and to elders. If every growing family had a computer and inexpensive internet access, and every greying family discovered how useful personal computers are, the onshore needs for increased software and services would spike employment. Tech aside, don't forget the things that cannot be exported. Yes, Wal-Mart employees, but also, health care, nursing, long term care, education, real estate sales, home construction and remodeling, legal services, financial services, (the business of) college education, tourism, drug development (under 21CFR11), physical security. Each of these require more, not less, IT support. And don't forget our ability to compete head on, by doing business in better ways. Things are not that grim, unless, of course, we just give up.
Don Michelinie ATTENTION SHOPPERS: MID-LIFE CRISES, AISLE 9
I had to laugh at your reference to Wal-Mart becoming bigger than GM. I’ve been in the automotive market in the Detroit area for 17 years, and spent the last 6 or so years managing a software development group, with all its associated pressures—including the pressure to outsource our development activities to places like India . My wife and I have often joked about leaving it all behind, moving down south and becoming Wal-Mart greeters. At 39 years old, and after an intense personal crisis, we were talking about it just this morning—this time much more seriously. I could be a Wal-Mart greeter. My wife and I could work together. Life would be easier. Sweet! :-)
Name and company withheld
Thank you for writing “The New Brain Drain”! You don't know how long I've been waiting for someone with a level mind to write something on this subject. Most writers, and publications for that matter, will not tackle a subject such as this for fear of being perceived as politically incorrect or protectionist. I was a senior technical support engineer and DBA at a large database vendor for almost 8 years and was laid off 16 months ago as part of a two year plan to massively reduce head count and boost the share price. Well it worked. Sybase's stock is way up, morale is down, and in my opinion customer service has suffered. I used to be, in the words of management author Subir Chowdhury, a real "talent" in my company. however in my search for a job I have been reduced to the likes of a desperate, lost soul. I possess a combination of skills and backgrounds that most companies would have drooled over just 3 years ago. However I have literally been told I have little to offer the "new" (leaner & meaner) IT company these days. I have enclosed a generic copy of my resume just to show you what is deemed worthless these days. I unfortunately have been working for the past few years in a position where I was not able to focus on any particular skill thus have been labeled a generalist. That used to be a good thing. Now I'm being asked to be a guru in a minimum of 6 entirely different disciplines. The high number so far is 14! One line in your article really resonated with me. To paraphrase, you stated that companies are continuing to complain that they cannot get skilled domestic help that [sic] are strong in science and mathematics. GIVE ME A BREAK! I have met many programmers in my day and none of them are experts in any particular field of science nor are they required to be. Having a very solid foundation in higher mathematics would be helpful but again I have NEVER seen this as a requirement until this recession started. American companies are masters of exploitation and that's what's happening nowadays on an epidemic level. Don't get me started on H1-Bs! I am incensed to see an entire group of people come into this country, take the jobs, work like animals for 5ish years then return home to retire like kings, or even worse, set up shop as a contractor for hire to the American companies who employed them or their competitors. On many occasions I have even offered to work for several months for free as a trying out period and they still would rather have some book smart drone with zero personality from overseas who unbeknownst to them will be leaving as soon as their visa has expired or when they're offered more money to go elsewhere. And the money is not staying here in the form of taxes, its being sent back home by the boatload. I can't blame the loss of my job on H1B's, it was a pure cost cutting strategy, however I know I would have a snowball's chance in hell of getting it back. It's gone forever just like the majority of the IT jobs that have disappeared lately. Anyway, I am so disgusted with the current culture of IT and the present job market that I am presently in school for nursing. It's one of the few fields left where you can still get an entry level job without 5-10 years of experience. Four layoffs and three career changes in the last 15 years, at this rate my brain will be completely burnt out by the time I'm 50 and I'll really be useless. I say what comes around goes around. Within the next 10 - 20 years all the good IT and manufacturing jobs will be gone overseas. Their economies will prosper and their standard of living will at least equal the US. But as time goes by foreign companies (if they follow the US business model) will start to look at the quaint former superpower known as the US and say, "Hey there's lots of cheap, unskilled labor over there, lets build some factories and move our manufacturing to cut costs." Sound familiar?! I absolutely guarantee you that the US will become the new Mexico of the world. 5% of the population lucky enough to have ties with foreign companies will have 90% of the wealth.
I'll leave you with one last thought. I used to tell my former business and
social studies students this when the topic of corporations was being discussed.
"Companies do NOT exist to employ people, they exist solely to make a profit
for the shareholders, period. Don't EVER forget that."
MOCK SECURITY Again, you are still a master with a keyboard. Your outlook (reality) was yuk! I'm looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, some sign of economic growth that might lead to the keyword hiring. I’ve been looking for a long time and it is freezing out there. I see so many developer jobs that are offered by contractors of the federal government but because I don’t posses the prerequisite of a “security clearance,” my skill set, experience and desire seem to be of no interest. I feel discriminated against by my own government. I develop mock projects just for kicks and keep looking for elusive opportunities everywhere.
Glenn Butler
OLD SCHOOL We do not need more money invested in education. We spend plenty and then some. What we need to do is to roll the clock back 50 years, and reinstate the academic standards of that time. The powers that be have been lowering the bar, both academically and socially, for many decades. Our culture does not value book learning, and by and large, ridicules any young person who tries to be smart. Do you want proof? Get your hands on this years New York State Regents exams, and compare them to those of 40 to 50 years ago.
CLASS DIVIDE I'm not sure who you anticipate your reading audience will be. I suspect the Project Leaders, Technical Architects, Analysts, and such agree with you. I suspect the decision makers (COE/CIO/CFO/Board of directors) do not. They are profit driven, and it has become very obvious the U.S. decision makers cannot see any further then the next quarterly profit sheet. Looks like our only hope is that lesser paid group that all future generations depend on, the teachers.
T. Schmitz
|
