[Java Student]

So today in Computer Science class, my teacher talks about jobs being
outsourced from India and Indian house wifes being taught to program
for 6$/hour and no employer will pay me a good wage when they can get
it at 6$/hour.
This is very worrysome to me because i love to program and im 100% sure
this is what i'll be doing for a living.

Also i live in Canada.

Should this worry me?
What should i do?

[modi123_1]

Java Student, on 02 March 2010 - 04:41 PM, said:

So today in Computer Science class, my teacher talks about jobs being
outsourced from India and Indian house wifes being taught to program
for 6$/hour and no employer will pay me a good wage when they can get
it at 6$/hour.
This is very worrysome to me because i love to program and im 100% sure
this is what i'll be doing for a living.

Also i live in Canada.

Should this worry me?
What should i do?

I think you mean "to india" and not "from india"
Should you be worried - yup.
Should it persuade you from being a developer - probably not but that's your call. Comfort level and all.
What should you do? That's up to you... lobby against it... protest... be a systems architect.. a designer... or just get ready to possibly one day not be writing code but managing folk over seas who will write your code.
Of course this is from a jaded person from the US watching it happen in my own company..

[Java Student]

Wow...
I mean really is there a point to become a game programmer anymore
what is the point of studying all day and night if your going to be
undercut by some Indian house wife over seas.

This is so confusing because i'v heard you can make alot of money
in this feild.

It's not worth all my time if im going to be left unemployed

[KYA]

You get what you pay for. The trend may be outsourcing, but the caveat to that is companies often return the work here [in the U.S.] because the quality was just terrible.

There's a significant difference when you have the team "in person". thedailywtf.com has great examples from people outsourcing their work.


I corrected your title, the 'e' was bothering me.

[modi123_1]

Java Student, on 02 March 2010 - 05:37 PM, said:

Wow...
I mean really is there a point to become a game programmer anymore
what is the point of studying all day and night if your going to be
undercut by some Indian house wife over seas.

This is so confusing because i'v heard you can make alot of money
in this feild.

It's not worth all my time if im going to be left unemployed

Wait you want to be a game developer? Ah.. my background is a straight corporate whore and cog in the System. Plugged into the feeder tube for the nutrients and tears of my coworkers.

I once thought about being a game developer, but found the market to be way more competitive than I wanted to fight. Everyone and anyone who picked up a game controller at some time thought "Hell I could do this!" and thus the game market is always flooded with every n00b, wilson, 'give-me-the-codez' with the few dedicated one swimming to the top. Not to mention the long hours.. the whole 'ea spouse' blog of commentary and what not made it feel less than appealing.

Of course my own world of financials, time entry, estimating, project management, and so on cut a bit close to being a game developer's schedule. Cest la vie.

[Java Student]

modi123_1, on 03 March 2010 - 07:12 AM, said:

Wait you want to be a game developer? Ah.. my background is a straight corporate whore and cog in the System. Plugged into the feeder tube for the nutrients and tears of my coworkers.

We have different lives... lol

Im prepared for the long hours i assure you. This century video games are a rising market
which doesn't hurt me persay. Im sure theres noobs saying " Hell i can make this game " but they
in achuallity they couldn't because of the huge learning curve.

[JackOfAllTrades]

Java Student, on 03 March 2010 - 09:49 AM, said:

modi123_1, on 03 March 2010 - 07:12 AM, said:

Wait you want to be a game developer? Ah.. my background is a straight corporate whore and cog in the System. Plugged into the feeder tube for the nutrients and tears of my coworkers.

We have different lives... lol

Im prepared for the long hours i assure you. This century video games are a rising market
which doesn't hurt me persay. Im sure theres noobs saying " Hell i can make this game " but they
in achuallity they couldn't because of the huge learning curve.

My Activision stock holdings do not bear this out, so I hope you're right.

[welfinator]

Java Student, on 02 March 2010 - 02:41 PM, said:

So today in Computer Science class, my teacher talks about jobs being
outsourced from India and Indian house wifes being taught to program
for 6$/hour and no employer will pay me a good wage when they can get
it at 6$/hour.
This is very worrysome to me because i love to program and im 100% sure
this is what i'll be doing for a living.

Also i live in Canada.

Should this worry me?
What should i do?

I would say that you should not worry about this too much. I was actually talking to my father about this the other day who works for a very large software company. His department decided to outsource some of their legacy code to India and he told me that it was a disaster. He went to Bangalore a couple of times to oversee their progress and they were just butchering the software that they had spent $40million on to develop here in the u.s., Germany, and Spain. He also said that while Indian's are great at programming they never ask questions, they do exactly what you told them to do but they do it in the way that they understood your explanation. Something like this could be fixed, however nobody in his department wants to go to India. I think this is a problem in many software companies and instead of outsourcing to India they are now outsourcing to eastern european countries, cities such as Prague. While you might be afraid of outsourcing I also still firmly believe that Computer Science does not solely rely on programming skill and knowledge of many programming languages, there is more to holding a high-level developing job, such as communication skills, analytical skills, knowledge of algorithms, thinking outside the box etc...
So I personally would not worry about it right now. Maybe in the future ~50 years it will look different.
Good Luck

[Java Student]

welfinator, on 04 March 2010 - 12:14 PM, said:

I would say that you should not worry about this too much. I was actually talking to my father about this the other day who works for a very large software company. His department decided to outsource some of their legacy code to India and he told me that it was a disaster. He went to Bangalore a couple of times to oversee their progress and they were just butchering the software that they had spent $40million on to develop here in the u.s., Germany, and Spain. He also said that while Indian's are great at programming they never ask questions, they do exactly what you told them to do but they do it in the way that they understood your explanation. Something like this could be fixed, however nobody in his department wants to go to India. I think this is a problem in many software companies and instead of outsourcing to India they are now outsourcing to eastern european countries, cities such as Prague. While you might be afraid of outsourcing I also still firmly believe that Computer Science does not solely rely on programming skill and knowledge of many programming languages, there is more to holding a high-level developing job, such as communication skills, analytical skills, knowledge of algorithms, thinking outside the box etc...
So I personally would not worry about it right now. Maybe in the future ~50 years it will look different.
Good Luck

Ah yes most outsourcing i'v heard is mostly done from bangalore. Thanks for your input I needed some reassurance.

[NickDMax]

Right now there is a trend towards viewing developers as a commodity meaning that we are becoming just a "resource" and there is little distinction between one resource and another. So if there is no fundamental difference between an off shore resource and a local resource except price per unit -- well decision makers are going to go with the least expensive solution.

While there is evidence that this is not a good decision, there are still enough success stories to keep plugging away.

Is outsourcing statistically sound?

Keep in mind that most software projects are failures. So if the project is going to fail anyway, lets spend a little on it as possible.

Is the percentage of software projects that are failures affected by outsourcing?

[LaFayette]

I'm pretty sure that outsourcing is here to stay (even when the economy is fully recovered). The big issue that everyone keeps talking about is the lack of quality control, but this is not something inherent and someone is bound to fix that and put it in practice.

[no2pencil]

My advice, you should have the ability to get the job before you start to worry about someone else taking it away.

[Adkins]

Java Student, on 02 March 2010 - 02:41 PM, said:

This is very worrysome to me because i love to program and im 100% sure
this is what i'll be doing for a living.

If you love to program and you are truly 100% sure that is what you wanna do, then this isn't a problem it is a challenge. Outsourcing is nothing more than an open challenge to all programmers and developers out there to prove that they are more than just a commodity or resource. With enough practice a monkey could bang out some code, but that doesn't mean he would have the insight to see problems while coding, or to make performance improvements were needed even if not directed. I agree with the others that outsourcing is here to stay, but with quality work and pleasant surprises to the boys in suits you can make yourself more than a commodity.

Don't let the first little hurdle that you hear about scare you off.

[Java Student]

no2pencil, on 04 March 2010 - 11:41 PM, said:

My advice, you should have the ability to get the job before you start to worry about someone else taking it away.

Why would train to get the ability if I can never get the job.

Thanks for your input Adkins, I think the quality will not change.

[JackOfAllTrades]

Not to denigrate the OP in this thread, but few of the decision makers stop to consider what they MAY be getting on the other end of an Outsourcing deal. Someone with a "Master's degree" who learned how to program using 20+ year old technology.

As stated before in several topics here: until these students start protesting the outdated syllabi and tools being thrust upon them, they, the clueless (willfully or otherwise) body shops that hire them, and the ignorant multinationals that hire the body shops, will continue to run into trouble.