What matters to the good RoR programmer in India?

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abhic

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Jan 7, 2008, 1:54:35 PM1/7/08
to BANGALORE RUG-Ruby Users Group
Hello People
I am new here - India Web 2.0 scene and Bangalore RUG, been trying to
get a grasp on the landscape here - How is the work environment for
web startups and the ecosystem around it. Its been really great so far
from almost all aspects. The energy is infectious, the market wide
open and a lot of cool development happening.

But I am having a hard time figuring out the talent pool here. For the
most part, people don't really care about what we or other startups
are doing. RoR Coders that we have met so far don't start off with
asking about what we are doing or using or innovating on. The first
question happens to be 'what are you offering?' and we are always
taken aback. On top of that, why are Indian coders working for Indian
companies talking to an Indian entrepreneur quoting hourly rates in
dollars?

I get the economics of demand and supply. But is there no
rationalization and no interest in creating something cool out of
India? If nothing else, then talking about that before the
conversation gravitates to Rs. (oops $) and loses all enthusiasm.
Almost all startup founders I spoke to warned me about the talent pool
and the shortage of quality committed creative coders, but I am still
kinda shell shocked. We are willing to pay top Rs. and maybe more if
the guy/girl is right, but is that all that matters here? Please tell
me there's hope for startups who want people who love their code and
can do more than figure out which is their next project.

I would love to hear back from everybody on here.

AbhishekParolkar

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Jan 8, 2008, 12:02:24 AM1/8/08
to BANGALORE RUG-Ruby Users Group
Hello abhic,

I also have been questioning myself from quite a long time as to
what is it that motivates indian programmers to look for innovation in
what they do... India has a great talent pool and its is huge...
According to me sourcing good candidates is not as tough as retaining
them in the organisation. So the problem is two fold, One side is
getting the right people , Other more tough side is to maintain their
satisfaction and energy levels to keep them innovating.

When it comes to finding RoR developers, We must keep few things in
our mind, there are two kinds of people who picked up RoR , first
those who are passionate about RoR as a framework because of their
relatively bad experiences with other technologies, they are
selfmotivated to resolve issues which comes along with using new
technologies, They use RoR as Hobby. Another kind includes people with
little capability to be able to appreciate ruby as a language, and RoR
as something to be passionate about. They use RoR at work because ¨It
is their work¨ . As an average when I meet candidates, I find that ,
They are not able to question the fundamentals. and this capability
only comes when ¨computer¨ has been treated by them as a toy
(something to play with) and programming language as something to
enjoy. So I feel , this is fundamental problem in all areas not just
RoR. But I would love to discuss and research more on this...

Lets talk solution, tell me more as to what kind of communication you
hold when you interact with them to find what they are...

IMPORTANT: This group is certainly to only discuss Ruby / RoR as
technology and not about people who use RoR , but looking at the
problem I am personaly interested to talk about it, because this
conversation will surely yield certain aspects of Ruby which
influences adopters to choose it and work with passion.


´Abhishek Parolkar
(Web 2.0 Technologist)
Heurion Consulting Pvt Ltd





Satish Kota

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Jan 8, 2008, 3:08:11 AM1/8/08
to bangal...@googlegroups.com
Hi Abhic,
 
As abhishek said, I understand ppl are into RoR for 2 reasons
 
1. They Liked it when they got to know it (I have had about 8-9yrs exp on Microsoft and appreciated RoR in just 1 month)
2. They are into RoR right from their start i.e. when they are freshers they have been picked up into this activity and trained
 
So basically what you need to target is the first part... The second part is always.... similar to any technology .Net or Java...where you say "Whats my salary..."
 
Basically... we have been doing the follow system / work for someone than the self system... Why do you think there aren't many freelancers in India....The culture also plays a role in this...
 
In my mind..... you will find both... only that you have to identify what you actually need.
 
I agree with you on all startup founders you spoke warning you about the talent pool and the shortage of quality committed creative coders... I dont believe in this...bcos there are lots of committed creative coders... but very few of them ready to work for start ups... even if you pay higher, you might not get them...as they dont see security in startups... so for start up...get the mediocres... and train them to that level ...and start ups cannot afford doing it... :)
 
Its a kind of chicken and egg problem...
 
I think this platform is not the right one to talk about this.... here its all about Ruby and Rails programming and not about ppl using it...
 
Thanks and Regards
Satish N Kota
Moderator, Bangalore-RUG


 
On 08/01/2008, AbhishekParolkar <abhishek...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello abhic,

  I also have been questioning myself from quite a long time as to
what is it that motivates indian programmers to look for innovation in
what they do...  India has a great talent pool and its is huge...
According to me sourcing good candidates is not as tough as retaining
them in the organisation. So the problem is two fold, One side is
getting the right people , Other  more tough side is to maintain their
satisfaction and energy levels to keep them innovating.

When it comes to  findig RoR developers, We must keep few things in

sparkymat

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Jan 8, 2008, 3:21:14 AM1/8/08
to bangal...@googlegroups.com
> I think this platform is not the right one to talk about this.... here its
> all about Ruby and Rails programming and not about ppl using it...

I am new too. However, I do not feel the discussion is irrelevant (or
improper) to this forum. As far as I understood, this is the sole
mailing list for both tech and non-tech discussions of our bangalore
ruby user group.

- sparkymat

Satish Kota

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Jan 8, 2008, 4:00:19 AM1/8/08
to bangal...@googlegroups.com
Hi,
 
Yeah I agree this is the sole mailing list for tech and non-tech discussions... but what our friend abhic is identifying doesnot fall to just RoR...its for every one...the same is the issue for Php, Python, Perl...etc.,
 
Regards
Satish N Kota

 

sparkymat

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Jan 8, 2008, 4:20:52 AM1/8/08
to bangal...@googlegroups.com
True, but I feel this is a good discussion and lets not discard it on
a technicality. Not entirely related to the topic, but what drew me to
Ruby was that it helped me express my thoughts faster (as compared to
C/C++ or Java) . So lets say that Ruby is the kinda language (along
with other higher level languages like Python) that promotes
innovation by removing the burden of coding scaffolding (especially
true for Rails right?). Yet innovation gets stifled in the name of
business and market appeal. Well, maybe a prime reason is the risk
involved. Many would rather code something evolutionary that they know
people would use, rather than something revolutionary that has a much
higher risk of being criticised/ridiculed, or worse, ignored! So
attitude may have a lot to do with innovation as well.

What can be done? Need to think. Will pitch in thoughts as they occur to me.

- sparkymat

C. K. Ponnappa

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Jan 8, 2008, 4:50:49 AM1/8/08
to bangal...@googlegroups.com
Bluntly, there are people in this for the money, there are people in
this for their love of hacking, and there are people in this trying to
make a living off their love for hacking. When you fall into the last
category, you tend to become rather pragmatic over time. Keep writing
cool software for someone who doesn't pay well and soon you'll be going
hungry.

The last category is also the best to hire if you're hoping to make a
living off the software you build - they tend to focus on useful (read
revenue generating) first and frills and fopperies second.

Note that I haven't mentioned the first category at all for obvious
reasons. Avoid them like the plague - they're everywhere in India, like
a swarm of locusts armed with padded or outright fake resumes, ready to
strip any poor unsuspecting employer to the bone before moving on. Oh
there are plenty of organisations which fall into this bracket too.

Sidu
http://blog.sidu.in

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