Beware the rentacoder.com
Robin Holmes
get me wrong, it's the greatest idea in the world to have an open jobs
board where the best guy gets the job, but what you will find out the
hard way is that they've got the coders scrambling for work like a
bunch of starving dogs. It's insane to think so many educated minds
are not simply going to say stuff these cheapskates and boycot the
thing till the cash they pay gets better. I mean $100 for an entire
website. Are you friggin looney? I saw an ad for a circuit board
design for under 100 as well.
The problem is theres no price control so to get work all you do is
bid lower than the other guys. Problem is this happens with everyione
so you arrive at a low price that'll really kick you in the tail end
when the pay comes because its worth nothing. Another thing is folks
try to give you the impression they're wealthy or upstanding behind
the wall of the internet and because you don't see them you might
think they're like actually serious, but take my word for it, it's the
little boys playing "Mr Big Manager" and you're their dog.
Take me for example, I think I managed four potatoes as entire diet
for the last week from Tuesday to Sunday, and then they tell me I must
"Apply Myself" more.
So before you go crazy about getting work there just try to put things
in perspective. Try to think, what would I do if I was a buyer. You
will soon arrive at the conclusion that you get your own slave for
next to nothing just by posting a bid? Payment, what's he gonna do,
fly to your country and beat you up on the 20 bucks you gave him.
If you're an educated bloke with other options, rather go smoke dope
till you lapse into a coma, because either way you're jess gonna waste
away.
Thank you.
Bryan Hoover
Robin, I see your pain, and raise you two kicks in gonads.
Don't sweat it. If the price ain't right, it ain't worth the fight.
Now get up and shake it off! There's a war on ya know :).
Bryan
Randy Howard
@yahoo.com says...
> Take me for example, I think I managed four potatoes as entire diet
> for the last week from Tuesday to Sunday, and then they tell me I must
> "Apply Myself" more.
I agree. You should pick up a rifle and put some food on the table.
> So before you go crazy about getting work there just try to put things
> in perspective. Try to think, what would I do if I was a buyer. You
> will soon arrive at the conclusion that you get your own slave for
> next to nothing just by posting a bid? Payment, what's he gonna do,
> fly to your country and beat you up on the 20 bucks you gave him.
So don't do it. Surely you can make more flipping burgers.
--
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)
"For some reason most people seem to be born without the part
of the brain that understands pointers." -- Joel Spolsky
Matthew Hanna
I was always under the impression that most of the programmers on
rentacoder are in other countries where the cost of living is
significantly lower than in the US. They can be really cheap by US
standards and still make a fortune for where they are. My cousin in the
Philipines makes a quarter of what I do and he still lives better than
me. :-)
Sergey I.Grachyov
> get me wrong, it's the greatest idea in the world to have an open jobs
> board where the best guy gets the job, but what you will find out the
> hard way is that they've got the coders scrambling for work like a
> bunch of starving dogs. It's insane to think so many educated minds
> are not simply going to say stuff these cheapskates and boycot the
> thing till the cash they pay gets better. I mean $100 for an entire
> website. Are you friggin looney? I saw an ad for a circuit board
> design for under 100 as well.
Buyers, are you here?
Do you constantly overpay for probably _the_ _same_ code?
Give RentACoder.com a try:
hire a programmer from inexpensive area
and get more quality result for less money.
This service is totally free (i.e. $0) for buyers -
they do not pay for registration, placing request or accepting bid.
Remember: if you don't satisfy with results - just don't accept it.
Please, read buyer's FAQ for more info.
--
Sergey I.Grachyov,
RentACoder.com 'Top Coder'
http://www.takereal.com/freelance/resume.asp
PS. I don't work for RentACoder, but I work with RentACoder on my own.
I have 433 completed projects for today. My price: $10/hour.
SKDevelopment
programmers. And it is cheap for buyers because the competition
between coders is so big, they usually can not work for big money.
But if it is a commercial project, not some student lab, some buyers
seem not to consider money as the most important thing. Some prefer to
be sure their projects are done on time and with good quality. And they
choose a coder not by price but by his qualification.
Many buyers seem to prefer to select coders with big work history (it
is publicly available at RAC) and rating close to 10. It minimizes the
risk of somebody failing the project.
Though it seems really impossible to get a bid at high price if a coder
has little work history or bad rating.
--
Best regards,
Sergey Korolev
http://www.skdevelopment.com/
Bryan Hoover
Bryan
r...@xeon.tv
<I have 433 completed projects for today. My price: $10/hour.
You get what you pay for. Of course most people that hire people on
RentACoder don't know how to value software services or know what a
good end product looks like. When looking at cost, quality, and
schedule issues you might have very low upfront costs but quality and
schedule would probably suffer. Production and support are typically
70% of your expenses BTW, so don't lose sight of future expenses you
would likely incur.
spino...@yahoo.com
As long as coders sit in their hovels and fail to manifest simple human
solidarity, and flame each other on the Internet, they will be taken
advantage of.
Don't expect to go to some site and get work without having to
socialize yourself. Get out and interview for a job like a human being,
and find a company with people you like. Let the collective do the
negotiation with the customer.
One "coder", by definition, can and will be taken advantage of. But a
group of even two has exponential power as seen in the phenomenon of
paired coding.
But one needs to get over the bourgeois illusion of terminal
inDUHviduality.
Bill Godfrey
> PS. I don't work for RentACoder, but I work with RentACoder on my own.
> I have 433 completed projects for today. My price: $10/hour.
Since I started working about 8 years ago, I've completed 9 projects.
Ho hum.
(Excluding personal unpaid work.)
Bill, gets paid much more too.
--
http://billpg.me.uk/
usenet(at)billpg(dot)me(dot)uk
Sergey I.Grachyov
>> I have 433 completed projects for today. My price: $10/hour.
I will illustrate: RentACoder works fine.
> Since I started working about 8 years ago, I've completed 9 projects.
Too big projects or too few buyers for your skills?
My projects aren't big - but all completed.
I have many permanent buyers.
--
Sergey I.Grachyov
Bill Godfrey
> > Since I started working about 8 years ago, I've completed 9 projects.
> Too big projects or too few buyers for your skills?
Um, neither. I never felt a project was too big. It takes time, what with
the design, code, test, etc, etc, etc, etc. Plenty of buyers too.
(Continually in employment all that tame, save a few weeks between jobs.)
Sounds like we have different ideas about what constitutes a project. No
biggie.
Bill, biggie.
--
http://billpg.me.uk/
usenet(at)billpg(dot)me(dot)uk
Sergey I.Grachyov
No needs to overpay for probably the same code.
> Of course most people that hire people on
> RentACoder don't know how to value software services or know what a
> good end product looks like.
But they are returns again and again. And post new project(s).
According official statistics - 92% of RACs buyers are repeat customers.
> When looking at cost, quality, and
> schedule issues you might have very low upfront costs but quality and
> schedule would probably suffer. Production and support are typically
> 70% of your expenses BTW, so don't lose sight of future expenses you
> would likely incur.
For RACs buyers:
1. Quality: if you don't satisfied - no needs to accept work.
2. Schedule: if deadline missed - you can receive whole refund.
3. Support: overpaying(today) doesn't guarantee anything(in future).
--
Sergey I.Grachyov
SKDevelopment
--
Best regards,
Sergey Korolev
http://www.skdevelopment.com/
Bryan Hoover wrote:
delta...@yahoo.com
that I'm not anti-rent-a-coder. It's great. Work is better than no
work.
Also a lot of replies seem to be advice about how to solve this
problem. Ok thats like not the issue as anyone who tries can gets
somewhere with effort.
What I intended was to warn those new to rentacoder to be on guard
about what they agree to so as to avoid problems caused by possibly
misleading advertising. This primariliy because of folks who are not
knowing software and how it really works(You don't see Microsoft there
a lot) trying to be boss an you ending up on the losing end of a
bargain.
The post was never a sob-story about my own misfortune. If I can get
ten guys a better year because of avoiding dodgy internet connections ,
well, thats ten guys making more, and so more in the world., and also
more guys doing something thats better led or qualified than if they
got hooked up with someone naive.
So no offense to rentacoder.com . I just firmly believe they should
also try to verify their buyers ability to manage software and also
provide definite ratings about what ther buyers have actually
accomplished.
It would be great if they could get their act together and help the
coders buy enforcing realistic wages. Their rates are so low that
tripling the minimum is not going to break anyones bank, and might
avoid a whole new underclass of technical workers which will surely
come as a result of the "bargain" and not "quality" mentality.
So make great stuff and all that, please just make sure its more
realistic than oppurtunistic.
Think long and hard about whatever you say to managers if getting into
programming.
Excuse the typos, I'm busy.
Thanks, Robin.
Randy Howard
> Buyers, are you here?
No, this group is primarily subscribed to by developers. This isn't a
for sale group, or a spam group, so stop doing it.
> Do you constantly overpay for probably _the_ _same_ code?
No. I also don't have to worry about intellectual property issues
from developers in countries which do not even entertain the
concept of IP.
> Give <SPAM SNIPPED> a try:
No thanks.
> hire a programmer from inexpensive area
No thanks.
> and get more quality result for less money.
Bzzt. Wrong.
> This service is totally free (i.e. $0) for buyers -
There are no buyers here.
> Please, read buyer's FAQ for more info.
No thanks, I'm not a buyer.
> I have 433 completed projects for today.
433? Today? Wow.
> My price: $10/hour.
How do you convince your customers that you work 8 hours when
you say you work 8 hours? How do they know you're not just
going to the beach, then selling them the same thing you
sold the last guy?
Ufit
"Randy Howard" <randy...@FOOverizonBAR.net> wrote in message news:MPG.1c5b6dbed...@news.verizon.net...
> In article <csmj09$176b$1...@news.peterlink.ru>, grac...@infopro.spb.su says...
> > Buyers, are you here?
>
>
> you say you work 8 hours? How do they know you're not just
> going to the beach, then selling them the same thing you
> sold the last guy?
>
codes you don't have to rewrite projects but slightly modify and sell to
bunch of other 'dudes'. That is what destroys coding development and IT branch.
IMO if you buy from such people you are killing or contributing to destroying the economy.
U
Sergey I.Grachyov
>
> No, this group is primarily subscribed to by developers.
Just "primarily"? So, buyers will read my post.
Each developer is potential software buyer.
> This isn't a for sale group, or a spam group, so stop doing it.
Are you moderator ?
There are no reasons to hide my opinion, experience and success.
> No. I also don't have to worry about intellectual property issues
> from developers in countries which do not even entertain the
> concept of IP.
You forgot to mention one more important argument: "bears on the streets".
> How do you convince your customers that you work 8 hours when
> you say you work 8 hours?
Do you have any practise with discussed subject or other open auctions?
When I place my bid -
I foresee how much time I need to accomplish my work.
If I can't foresee - I will ask questions.
With 433 completed projects - I have good experience.
> How do they know you're not just
> going to the beach, then selling them the same thing you
> sold the last guy?
1. Coder has deadline. If coder can't accomplish project before deadline,
buyer receive full refund. And coder gets low rating.
2. There is one and the same phrase:
'All deliverables will be considered "work made for hire" under U.S.
Copyright law'
in each RAC's auction.
All my codes have been written from scratch.
Randy Howard
> > This isn't a for sale group, or a spam group, so stop doing it.
>
> Are you moderator ?
No, but usenet etiquette going back decades says you should abide by
the policies of each group anyway, without having to have a KGB
official threaten you with disappearance if you do not. Most people
seem to be able to live within that constraint comfortably. A quick
lookup on my news server found 226 forsale newsgroups. A bona fide
rentacoder could probably find even more. :-)
> > No. I also don't have to worry about intellectual property issues
> > from developers in countries which do not even entertain the
> > concept of IP.
>
> You forgot to mention one more important argument: "bears on the streets".
I don't care about bears one way or the other, but I do care a great deal
about being able to have legally obtained software. In the real world,
lawyers can be your worst nightmare. Using software of suspect origins
to run a business can be suicidal.
> > How do you convince your customers that you work 8 hours when
> > you say you work 8 hours?
>
> Do you have any practise with discussed subject or other open auctions?
I have been working on software and hardware development projects for the
last 25 years. During that time I have also hired many full-time and
contract programmers, with widely varied results. Hiring the lowest bidder
on projects has never been satisfactory during that time period. Rather
the opposite.
> When I place my bid -
> I foresee how much time I need to accomplish my work.
Magic. Most people can't come close to doing that without decades of
experience. Of course, if each project is tiny, perhaps that isn't
as much of a problem. I define anything that a single developer can
complete in a short period of time (a few weeks or less) as "tiny".
> With 433 completed projects - I have good experience.
I could create 433 hello world projects within the hour. Numbers
like that don't convey anything. It's just a statistic, and you
know what they say about those. What is useful to know is the
content, how similar they were, how different they were, and what
concepts and methods were employed. That can't be conveyed in 4
words. It would take rather a long time to cover that area if those
433 projects represented a large amount of unique development work.
> > How do they know you're not just
> > going to the beach, then selling them the same thing you
> > sold the last guy?
>
> 1. Coder has deadline. If coder can't accomplish project before deadline,
> buyer receive full refund. And coder gets low rating.
Well, that may make the buyer feel better for about five minutes. But
ten minutes later he gets fired for missing the deadline for a project
he was responsible for delivering. It might be nice for things that
are low priority, or "optional", but anyone using a model like that for
critical programs isn't going to survive long on the job.
> 2. There is one and the same phrase:
> 'All deliverables will be considered "work made for hire" under U.S.
> Copyright law'
> in each RAC's auction.
There is no reputable US corporate attorney who would derive comfort
from that alone.
Sergey I.Grachyov
>
>>> No, this group is primarily subscribed to by developers. This isn't a
>>> for sale group, or a spam group, so stop doing it.
>
>> Are you moderator ?
>
> No, but usenet etiquette going back decades says you should abide by
Just "No" is enough.
>> Do you have any practise with discussed subject or other open auctions?
>
> I have been working on software and hardware development projects for the
> last 25 years. During that time I have also hired many full-time and
> contract programmers, with widely varied results.
There is nothing about discussed subject or other open auctions.
You have hired people, who don't care about public rating.
If your employee failed - just no needs to update resume.
You say "widely varied results", but there is no public info such as:
March 2004. Randy Howard hire Mr.ABC to accomplish ...<project's description
skipped>...
Mr.ABC is greate coder.
Will hire Mr.ABC again
April 2004. Randy Howard hire Mr.XYZ to accomplish ...<project's description
skipped>...
Mr.XYZ miss deadline.
Bevare Mr.XYZ
> Hiring the lowest bidder on projects has never been satisfactory
> during that time period. Rather the opposite.
"lowest bidder" - that _you_ say.
I have good working history, so I can bid above average. Yes "average" isn't
too big.
This is always up to buyer: how to choose right coder.
What factors buyer should be taken into consideration?
Just price? Or, may be, rating and responses from other buyers more
important?
"lowest bidding" is method to create working history at first stage.
> > When I place my bid -
> > I foresee how much time I need to accomplish my work.
>
> Magic. Most people can't come close to doing that without decades of
> experience.
Most people doesn't have experience with open auctions.
They are train other skills.
For instance - let's search for "resume lie" via google.
> Of course, if each project is tiny, perhaps that isn't
> as much of a problem. I define anything that a single developer can
> complete in a short period of time (a few weeks or less) as "tiny".
I am not depressed by "tiny".
This is good experience, good money (in total), good contacts.
Even for "tiny" project you can spend a few week or more
to find right person.
But you can form your projects as request for bids,
publish it and receive many propositions same day.
Ah, I forget - you will never do this.
Because you can't check: Do you obtain software legally or not.
May be I should establish relations with your competitors,
who know how to perform this check.
You(your company) aren't monopolist, right?
> I could create 433 hello world projects within the hour.
Good luck to find some buyers for your creative works.
> Numbers like that don't convey anything.
That number will illustrate: system works fine.
> It's just a statistic, and you
> know what they say about those. What is useful to know is the
> content, how similar they were, how different they were, and what
> concepts and methods were employed. That can't be conveyed in 4
> words. It would take rather a long time to cover that area if those
> 433 projects represented a large amount of unique development work.
"areas" of other coders available too.
Someone who will employ - can spend time to "cover that area".
To save buyers time: If coder has been able to fulfill N projects -
he can accomplish N+1 project as well. Please, see my "N" above.
> > 1. Coder has deadline. If coder can't accomplish project before
deadline,
> > buyer receive full refund. And coder gets low rating.
>
> Well, that may make the buyer feel better for about five minutes. But
> ten minutes later he gets fired for missing the deadline for a project
> he was responsible for delivering.
Just 10 minutes for testing?
Who is responsible for buyer's personal problems ?
> It might be nice for things that
> are low priority, or "optional", but anyone using a model like that for
> critical programs isn't going to survive long on the job.
Critical? In the original post - it was "website" and "circuit board
design".
I take this list from Internet. Ideal projects for outsourcing:
- Platform porting projects
- Application conversions
- GUI design
- Database applications, migration and porting
- Web development, designing, programming etc.
- Components like ActiveX, VCL, Objects, Reports, and Modules.
- Technical Documentation, end user documentation and manuals
- Software QA and Testing
> > 2. There is one and the same phrase:
> > 'All deliverables will be considered "work made for hire" under U.S.
> > Copyright law'
> > in each RAC's auction.
>
> There is no reputable US corporate attorney who would derive comfort
> from that alone.
There is the buyer, who can send complain to RAC's.
And coder will lose his rating.
If you are ever act like RAC's coder - you should know:
rating much more important when money.
--
Sergey I.Grachyov,
My resume and reference letters in one:
http://www.takereal.com/freelance/resume.asp
Bill Godfrey
> >> Are you moderator ?
> > No, but usenet etiquette going back decades says you should abide by
> Just "No" is enough.
I am the group moderator. I have a kill file.
Bill, feel the power!
--
http://billpg.me.uk/
usenet(at)billpg(dot)me(dot)uk
Sergey I.Grachyov
> half a brain cell would know that (1) c.p has no moderator,
Dear jackass, as you can read in next response - at least one moderator
exists here.
> and (2) that's completely irrelevant to either the topic of this thread,
My original post was 100% relevant to discussed topic.
> or the fact that the initial direction of this thread (spam for
> Rentacoder.com) was way off-topic.[1]
I share my personal experience.
Do _you_ have any experience in the discussed topic.
Are you coder? Are you buyer? Did you ever use any open actions?
> I'm sure there are 433 people in the world who'd each pay $10 for some
> trivial program along the lines of "hello world."
My projects not big, but all completed. My buyers are happy.
> We get dozens of them in this group alone, every September.
You are working for free? I am not against.
> Of course, some of Sergey's "projects" simply amount to gouging
clueless
> people for answers they could have gotten elsewhere for free, and in less
> time.
Yes, It takses me 1 min to post my bid and 1 min to send answer.
Sure - this buyer will return with more expensive question or project.
> And more than half of the ones I clicked on didn't show up --- the
> "auctions" were actually secret and the project descriptions unavailable.
This is up to my buyers. Not everyone like to share secrets.
> These sales presumably serve only to inflate sellers' ratings.
All my buyers are real persons. Mostly - from USA.
> Um... Have you ever read a book on mathematics in your extensive
> studies?
Of course, I read some. And you?
Sergey I.Grachyov
Really? Let me quote another letter from thread:
"Arthur J. O'Dwyer" <a...@nospam.andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.60-041....@unix46.andrew.cmu.edu...
"Anyone with half a brain cell would know that (1) c.p has no moderator,"
So, I think, you are Napoleon too.
--
Sergey I.Grachyov
Willem
) To save buyers time: If coder has been able to fulfill N projects -
) he can accomplish N+1 project as well. Please, see my "N" above.
Straw. Back. Camel.
SaSW, Willem
--
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
made in the above text. For all I know I might be
drugged or something..
No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT
Bill Godfrey
> So, I think, you are Napoleon too.
So, you have discovered my secret identity, mon ami.
Bonapart, going to try invading England again.
--
http://billpg.me.uk/
usenet(at)billpg(dot)me(dot)uk
Randy Howard
> >>>> Buyers, are you here?
> >
> >>> No, this group is primarily subscribed to by developers. This isn't a
> >>> for sale group, or a spam group, so stop doing it.
> >
> >> Are you moderator ?
> >
> > No, but usenet etiquette going back decades says you should abide by
>
> Just "No" is enough.
So you have no respect for other programmers. There is a shock.
> >> Do you have any practise with discussed subject or other open auctions?
> >
> > I have been working on software and hardware development projects for the
> > last 25 years. During that time I have also hired many full-time and
> > contract programmers, with widely varied results.
>
> There is nothing about discussed subject or other open auctions.
You think auctions are magical somehow? Am I to believe that a basically
anonymous individual 10,000 miles away is less likely to fail on a task
than someone 100 feet away in the same building?
> You have hired people, who don't care about public rating.
No, they care about their career. They are paid to care. The rating the
worry about is their performance appraisal, which is worth 10's of
thousands of dollars if it is above average or excellent, and worth a
trip to the unemployment line otherwise.
> You say "widely varied results", but there is no public info such as:
> March 2004. Randy Howard hire Mr.ABC to accomplish ...<project's description
> skipped>...
> Mr.ABC is greate coder.
> Will hire Mr.ABC again
Anyone that trusts the review of someone that hired the work done by the
lowest bidder to know how to identify a "greate coder" deserves what they
get.
> > Hiring the lowest bidder on projects has never been satisfactory
> > during that time period. Rather the opposite.
>
> "lowest bidder" - that _you_ say.
Yes, that's exactly what I said.
> > Of course, if each project is tiny, perhaps that isn't
> > as much of a problem. I define anything that a single developer can
> > complete in a short period of time (a few weeks or less) as "tiny".
>
> I am not depressed by "tiny".
I didn't say it should be depressing. Bear in mind that there is a huge
difference in difficulty in implementing large software systems, measured
in the single or double digits during a career versus ripping out hundreds
of quick utilities. As a result, the pay for such smaller projects is
commensurately worth less. Literally, almost anyone can do it. The
number of people that can be successful on the larger projects are a tiny
fraction of the whole.
> This is good experience, good money (in total), good contacts.
It probably is good experience for you.
> Ah, I forget - you will never do this.
> Because you can't check: Do you obtain software legally or not.
To do otherwise is to risk legal problems that you do not need. This
is especially true for something that is a "tiny" project, as the
time and expense to do it from scratch is very low, and the risk if
you hire it out and it turns out to be stolen IP belonging to someone
else can be massive, particularly for large and/or publicly held
companies.
> May be I should establish relations with your competitors,
> who know how to perform this check.
Please do.
> You(your company) aren't monopolist, right?
Correct.
> > I could create 433 hello world projects within the hour.
>
> Good luck to find some buyers for your creative works.
You'd be surprised how many CS students ask for people to do
their homework for them at the start of each semester. In fact,
somebody started a website in the last year or so to do homework
(fraudulently) for such students. If you want to make a few bucks
in an especially sleezy way, hang out in comp.lang.c come August
and wait for the begging to start.
> To save buyers time: If coder has been able to fulfill N projects -
> he can accomplish N+1 project as well. Please, see my "N" above.
I hope you do not bid on projects which require in depth knowledge
of mathematics or probability. The above quote is as close to snake
oil as any you have made so far.
If you have accomplished 433 projects and I ask you to implement
project 434 as a neural backprop network to solve a particularly large
mapping problem, I can guarantee you right now that your prediction is
false, regardless of what price and associated schedule was agreed upon.
If you want to claim, "If I can write 433 tic-tac-toe simulations, I can
probably write the 434th tic-tac-toe simulations" I might not argue.
> > > 1. Coder has deadline. If coder can't accomplish project before
> deadline,
> > > buyer receive full refund. And coder gets low rating.
> >
> > Well, that may make the buyer feel better for about five minutes. But
> > ten minutes later he gets fired for missing the deadline for a project
> > he was responsible for delivering.
>
> Just 10 minutes for testing?
You obviously misunderstood me. I meant that five minutes after they buyer
gets his money back (the full refund you alluded to), he still loses his
job for being incompetent to send it out and then have the project fail.
It has nothing to do with testing. My comment applies to what happens
after he has received the refund.
> Who is responsible for buyer's personal problems ?
His shrink? I don't see what that has to do with anything discussed above.
> > It might be nice for things that
> > are low priority, or "optional", but anyone using a model like that for
> > critical programs isn't going to survive long on the job.
>
> Critical? In the original post - it was "website" and "circuit board
> design".
Are you implying that circuit board design is not critical work? For some
companies, like google or Amazon for example, website design is the most
critical thing they have on their plate.
> > > 2. There is one and the same phrase:
> > > 'All deliverables will be considered "work made for hire" under U.S.
> > > Copyright law'
> > > in each RAC's auction.
> >
> > There is no reputable US corporate attorney who would derive comfort
> > from that alone.
>
> There is the buyer, who can send complain to RAC's.
> And coder will lose his rating.
That won't save him from a shareholder lawsuit, or a patent infringement
claim.
CBFalconer
> "Sergey I.Grachyov" <grac...@infopro.spb.su> wrote:
>
>>>> Are you moderator ?
>>> No, but usenet etiquette going back decades says you should abide by
>> Just "No" is enough.
>
> I am the group moderator. I have a kill file.
>
> Bill, feel the power!
The only question is whether to PLONK the thread, Sergey, or both.
--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
infobahn
>>>>>Buyers, are you here?
>>
>>>>No, this group is primarily subscribed to by developers. This isn't a
>>>>for sale group, or a spam group, so stop doing it.
>>
>>>Are you moderator ?
>>
>>No, but usenet etiquette going back decades says you should abide by
>
>
> Just "No" is enough.
No, it isn't. This isn't a courtroom. Mr Howard is perfectly
within his rights to add information to help you to understand
why the lack of a moderator does not mean "free for all".
>>>Do you have any practise with discussed subject or other open auctions?
>>
>>I have been working on software and hardware development projects for the
>>last 25 years. During that time I have also hired many full-time and
>>contract programmers, with widely varied results.
>
>
> There is nothing about discussed subject or other open auctions.
Such subjects are not topical here on comp.programming, so
Mr Howard is right to avoid discussing them. Nevertheless,
having read his articles for a number of years, I have a
huge respect for his knowledge and ability in computer
programming. I have considerably less information about
your programming ability than I do his. It is, however,
almost certainly true that he has never bothered to
compete in the auction market you describe, for the simple
reason that he'd want to charge a realistic rate for writing
a high quality product. Consequently, he simply would not
survive in the low-grade world of auctions. (Well, not
without compromising his principles. I have no information
on whether he'd be prepared to do that, but I suspect he
would not.)
> You have hired people, who don't care about public rating.
> If your employee failed - just no needs to update resume.
Those of us with a conscience feel obliged to record our
failures on our CV, as well as our successes.
>
> You say "widely varied results", but there is no public info such as:
> March 2004. Randy Howard hire Mr.ABC to accomplish ...<project's description
> skipped>...
> Mr.ABC is greate coder.
> Will hire Mr.ABC again
If Mr Howard did indeed recommend Mr ABC, I would treat that
recommendation very seriously. This is because Mr Howard has
established a reputation for competence in this newsgroup.
If J Random Customer recommended Mr ABC, however, I would
find it far less compelling.
>>Hiring the lowest bidder on projects has never been satisfactory
>>during that time period. Rather the opposite.
>
>
> "lowest bidder" - that _you_ say.
Yes, he is saying that:
IT'S A BAD IDEA TO HIRE THE LOWEST BIDDER.
In fact, it's just a waste of money. The lowest bidder is likely
to have misunderstood the problem and the constraints. Furthermore,
he is unlikely to have a solid grasp of his language of choice.
If these things were not true, he'd bid higher. Someone who knows
his tools and his job is worth more than someone who does not.
> I have good working history, so I can bid above average. Yes "average" isn't
> too big.
Your judgement of the quality of your working history appears
to be based on the opinions of people who don't actually know
how to write programs. If they did, they wouldn't have hired
you for such small projects, but would instead have written
those programs themselves.
Since these people can't write programs themselves, of what
value is their assessment of your programming ability?
>
> This is always up to buyer: how to choose right coder.
> What factors buyer should be taken into consideration?
> Just price? Or, may be, rating and responses from other buyers more
> important?
Only if those other buyers know what they're talking about.
And they don't.
>
> "lowest bidding" is method to create working history at first stage.
With the rather wonderful exception of open source (GNU, etc), you get
what you pay for.
>>>When I place my bid -
>>> I foresee how much time I need to accomplish my work.
>>
>>Magic. Most people can't come close to doing that without decades of
>>experience.
>
>
> Most people doesn't have experience with open auctions.
> They are train other skills.
Like programming, for example. We have not yet seen any evidence
that those who provide programming services via auction are
skilled programmers.
> For instance - let's search for "resume lie" via google.
Well, we can if you like. I got 758,000 hits. So what?
The fact that other people lie on their CVs doesn't mean
that I have to lie on mine, does it?
>>Of course, if each project is tiny, perhaps that isn't
>>as much of a problem. I define anything that a single developer can
>>complete in a short period of time (a few weeks or less) as "tiny".
>
>
> I am not depressed by "tiny".
> This is good experience, good money (in total), good contacts.
I won't argue about the money, since "good money" is a very
relative term. But the experience of spending your time working
on tiny projects isn't necessarily good, in that it isn't
helping you to make a success of a career in an organisation
working on very large systems. The sorts of hacks you can get
away with in your tiny projects simply don't scale well. As
for your contacts, we've already established that these are
people who don't know anything about programming, so I would
question their value.
> Even for "tiny" project you can spend a few week or more
> to find right person.
> But you can form your projects as request for bids,
> publish it and receive many propositions same day.
Why not just hire an expert for decent money? It's likely
to prove cheaper in the long run.
>
> Ah, I forget - you will never do this.
> Because you can't check: Do you obtain software legally or not.
IPR legality is indeed a good reason to avoid auction-based
programming services, but it's not the only reason.
> May be I should establish relations with your competitors,
> who know how to perform this check.
Oh, it's easy enough to find out whether the lowest bidder
violated IPR rules. Just hire him, pay him, and then wait
for someone to sue you. Is that what you had in mind? Some
people might call that a high-risk strategy, compared to
spending a couple of days hacking out a solution yourself
instead of hiring someone.
>>I could create 433 hello world projects within the hour.
>
> Good luck to find some buyers for your creative works.
Sadly, he would have few problems.
>>Numbers like that don't convey anything.
>
> That number will illustrate: system works fine.
By the same token, it is a well-known fact that horse manure
is good for your digestion. Trillions of flies can't possibly
be wrong.
Numbers on their own don't illustrate /anything/ properly.
You need semantics, too. Let's see what that 433 tells me.
We'll assume (in the absence of information to the contrary)
that you're halfway through your threescore years and ten.
We'll further assume that you've been writing these programs
since you were 22 (to allow for a university education).
So you've had 13 years. But everyone needs a holiday, so let's
assume 4 weeks a year, or 52 weeks all told. That knocks
it down to 12 years. We'll further assume that you spend
4 weeks a year trying to keep up to date in your field.
So we're at around 11 years now. We'll assume you work
for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, so your total available
time is 11 * 52 * 5 * 8 hours, which is 22880 hours.
Dividing that by 433, we get a little over 50 hours per
project.
So /if/ you're really that old, and if you've really
spent that long, then your average project time is
just over a week. If you're actually much younger,
then clearly it's much lower. These statistics suggest
that few if any of the 433 programs were large ones.
>>It's just a statistic, and you
>>know what they say about those. What is useful to know is the
>>content, how similar they were, how different they were, and what
>>concepts and methods were employed. That can't be conveyed in 4
>>words. It would take rather a long time to cover that area if those
>>433 projects represented a large amount of unique development work.
>
>
> "areas" of other coders available too.
> Someone who will employ - can spend time to "cover that area".
I think you've misunderstood Mr Howard's point, which is that
if you really have written 433 different programs (as opposed
to, say, ten or twelve programs about forty times each with
only mild differences between them), then it would have taken
you much longer to do and would take much longer to describe.
>
> To save buyers time: If coder has been able to fulfill N projects -
> he can accomplish N+1 project as well. Please, see my "N" above.
You will understand the falsity of that statement when you can
find the flaw in the following proof that all integers have the
same value.
Statement A: "All integers in any group of n integers have the
same value." (The word 'group' here is used in the loose sense
of 'collection', 'bunch', basketful', not in its mathematical
sense. No, that's not the flaw.)
We seek to show that Statement A is true for all n. To do this,
we will use proof by induction. That is, we will prove that
A(1) is true, and then prove that, if A(n) is true, then A(n+1)
is true as well.
In any group containing only one integer, that integer must have
the same value as itself, so we have proved that A(1) is true.
Now we need only prove that, given A(n) is true, A(n + 1) is also
true. If so, then we can construct an induction ladder from 1 to
infinity.
If A(n) is true, then every integer in a group of n integers has
the same value. Let Z be an arbitrary group containing n + 1
integers. If we can show that /any/ two members of Z must have
the same value, then we're done.
Let Zi, Zj, Zk be arbitrarily-chosen members of Z.
Consider the subgroup Y, which comprises all members of Z except
Zi. Clearly, Y has n integers, so all members of Y have the
same value. Y contains Zj and Zk, so Zj = Zk.
Consider the subgroup X, which comprises all members of Z except
Zj. Clearly, X has n integers, so all members of X have the
same value. X contains Zi and Zk, so Zi = Zk.
Two things that are equal to the same thing must be equal to
each other. Since Zi = Zk and Zj = Zk, Zi = Zj, i.e. any
two arbitrarily chosen members of Z (with n + 1 members) are
equal.
We have shown that, if A(n) is true, then A(n + 1) is true.
We have shown that A(1) is true. Classic proof by induction.
All your number are belong to us - unless you are good
enough at mathematics to spot the problem. If so, you
should have no problem understanding why this...
> To save buyers time: If coder has been able to fulfill N projects -
> he can accomplish N+1 project as well. Please, see my "N" above.
...is not true.
>>>1. Coder has deadline. If coder can't accomplish project before
>
> deadline,
>
>>>buyer receive full refund. And coder gets low rating.
>>
>>Well, that may make the buyer feel better for about five minutes. But
>>ten minutes later he gets fired for missing the deadline for a project
>>he was responsible for delivering.
>
>
> Just 10 minutes for testing?
I hope you focus primarily on customers who speak your native
language, since there is less chance for misunderstanding.
I also hope your native language is not English. The alternative
is unthinkable.
> I take this list from Internet. Ideal projects for outsourcing:
I have no problem with outsourcing. I just don't think it's
a good idea to hire Jason from Leeds to do it, if doing so
would distract him from his homework.
> There is the buyer, who can send complain to RAC's.
> And coder will lose his rating.
That's no comfort to the buyer if he lost his job because
he missed a deadline.
> If you are ever act like RAC's coder - you should know:
> rating much more important when money.
And that rating is worthless unless it's provided by people
who know what to look for in a programmer. He may be surprised
to hear me say this[1], but I have the greatest respect for Mr
Howard, and I have good reason to believe that he is in a far
better position to assess a programmer's skills than J Random
Customer on an auction site.
[1] Randy: I *know* it wasn't that funny, okay? I was tired,
and you know what happens when tired people do Usenet...
Sergey I.Grachyov
There is no any "so". I have my own opinion what and where I can post.
> You think auctions are magical somehow?
Open auctions are useful.
> Am I to believe that a basically
> anonymous individual 10,000 miles away is less likely to fail on a task
> than someone 100 feet away in the same building?
At 1st time - they are anonymous.
After some completed projects - they are more famous than everyone
in your local area.
"individual" - it's not 100% true. I am individual.
But RAC's 'Top coder #1' is indian company.
So 'open auction' is another way to find buyers.
>> You have hired people, who don't care about public rating.
>
> No, they care about their career. They are paid to care. The rating the
> worry about is their performance appraisal, which is worth 10's of
> thousands of dollars if it is above average or excellent, and worth a
> trip to the unemployment line otherwise.
"unemployment" - that's all? His "otherwise" is hidden from public.
And if he is "full-time" programmer - you should pay him every week
before you discover his "otherwise".
>>> Of course, if each project is tiny, perhaps that isn't
>>> as much of a problem. I define anything that a single developer can
>>> complete in a short period of time (a few weeks or less) as "tiny".
>>
>> I am not depressed by "tiny".
>
> I didn't say it should be depressing. Bear in mind that there is a huge
> difference in difficulty in implementing large software systems, measured
> in the single or double digits during a career versus ripping out hundreds
> of quick utilities.
I sale "hundreds of quick utilities" to expensive areas like USA.
Result is OK for me.
"hundreds of quick utilities" today -
becomes "tens of middle-size utilities" tomorrow.
> As a result, the pay for such smaller projects is
> commensurately worth less. Literally, almost anyone can do it.
Almost anyone Can do, but can't sale. Even for $10.
>> Ah, I forget - you will never do this.
>> Because you can't check: Do you obtain software legally or not.
>
> To do otherwise is to risk legal problems that you do not need. This
> is especially true for something that is a "tiny" project, as the
> time and expense to do it from scratch is very low, and the risk if
> you hire it out and it turns out to be stolen IP belonging to someone
> else can be massive, particularly for large and/or publicly held
> companies.
Thanks God - my buyers are happy and never read this scarecrow.
>>> I could create 433 hello world projects within the hour.
>>
>> Good luck to find some buyers for your creative works.
>
> You'd be surprised how many CS students ask for people to do
> their homework for them at the start of each semester. In fact,
> somebody started a website in the last year or so to do homework
> (fraudulently) for such students. If you want to make a few bucks
> in an especially sleezy way, hang out in comp.lang.c come August
> and wait for the begging to start.
These students are very good guys.
They are never becomes programmers.
Today - just homework.
Next time - course work or diplom.
Graduate and ask to do their real work.
> If you have accomplished 433 projects and I ask you to implement
> project 434 as a neural backprop network to solve a particularly large
> mapping problem,
I will never post my bid if you publish this task as request for bids.
> I can guarantee you right now that your prediction is
> false, regardless of what price and associated schedule was agreed upon.
My prediction is right. Someone, who have experience with
"neural backprop network" will place his bid.
Of course, you should post detailed description, not just 1 sentence.
And if you know how to test results - please, post too.
> You obviously misunderstood me. I meant that five minutes after they
buyer
> gets his money back (the full refund you alluded to), he still loses his
> job for being incompetent to send it out and then have the project fail.
> It has nothing to do with testing. My comment applies to what happens
> after he has received the refund.
Again - this buyers problem. For each project above $150
coder should send weekly status reports. This is RAC's feature.
If buyer dissatisfied by status report - he can ask about refund.
And also: Assume this buyer don't want to use open auctions
and hire "someone 100 feet away in the same building"
and this someone failed.
What is the difference? Buyer fired too, but spend some money locally.
>> Critical? In the original post - it was "website" and "circuit board
>> design".
>
> Are you implying that circuit board design is not critical work? For some
> companies, like google or Amazon for example, website design is the most
> critical thing they have on their plate.
Companies, where "circuit board design" isn't critical work, exists too.
Winning bidder will get more experience with "circuit board design"
and, who know, may be google or Amazon will use him in future.
CBFalconer
>
... snip ...
Love it. I can't put my finger on the flaw, except that the case
N=2 is conspicuously absent. For it we can't have 3 items.
CBFalconer
>
>> So you have no respect for other programmers. There is a shock.
>
> There is no any "so". I have my own opinion what and where I can post.
PLONK for rudeness and imbecility.
Sergey I.Grachyov
You are mention Mr Howard so often... You are his lawyer!
> Mr Howard is perfectly
> within his rights to add information to help you to understand
> why the lack of a moderator does not mean "free for all".
This info is disconnected from my original post.
I will decide myself what spam is and how to use this group.
>> There is nothing about discussed subject or other open auctions.
>
> Such subjects are not topical here on comp.programming, so
> Mr Howard is right to avoid discussing them.
You too? So, in short words:
"I don't know how to use open actions, but I have to say ..."
> Nevertheless,
> having read his articles for a number of years, I have a
> huge respect for his knowledge and ability in computer
> programming. I have considerably less information about
> your programming ability than I do his. It is, however,
> almost certainly true that he has never bothered to
> compete in the auction market you describe, for the simple
> reason that he'd want to charge a realistic rate for writing
> a high quality product. Consequently, he simply would not
> survive in the low-grade world of auctions. (Well, not
> without compromising his principles. I have no information
> on whether he'd be prepared to do that, but I suspect he
> would not.)
In short words - just can't compete with me.
> Those of us with a conscience feel obliged to record our
> failures on our CV, as well as our successes.
According google - there are no failures.
No one is responsible for failed projects.
> Yes, he is saying that:
>
> IT'S A BAD IDEA TO HIRE THE LOWEST BIDDER.
Cry, cry.
According Forrester research -
more than 3 million U.S. jobs will move offshore by 2015.
I will take some.
>> I have good working history, so I can bid above average. Yes "average"
isn't
>> too big.
>
> Your judgement of the quality of your working history appears
> to be based on the opinions of people who don't actually know
> how to write programs. If they did, they wouldn't have hired
> you for such small projects, but would instead have written
> those programs themselves.
Mr. infobahn just say: If you don't know how to write programs,
or just out of time - you can hire Mr. Sergey I.Grachyov
Please, use link below my signature.
>> "lowest bidding" is method to create working history at first stage.
>
> With the rather wonderful exception of open source (GNU, etc), you get
> what you pay for.
Of course! And no need to overpay for probably the same code.
I mean functionality.
> We have not yet seen any evidence
> that those who provide programming services via auction are
> skilled programmers.
Dear Nicolas the second, put your parts together and try again.
>> For instance - let's search for "resume lie" via google.
>
> Well, we can if you like. I got 758,000 hits. So what?
> The fact that other people lie on their CVs doesn't mean
> that I have to lie on mine, does it?
Who know? I never read it. And I can't use FBI to check it.
> I won't argue about the money, since "good money" is a very
> relative term. But the experience of spending your time working
> on tiny projects isn't necessarily good, in that it isn't
> helping you to make a success of a career in an organisation
> working on very large systems.
Ah! Rocket science :-)
> The sorts of hacks you can get
> away with in your tiny projects simply don't scale well.
Scale, scale.
> As
> for your contacts, we've already established that these are
> people who don't know anything about programming, so I would
> question their value.
Some people don't know anything about programming,
but they are have money and many ideas.
Some people - programmers out of time. Time to time.
There are many variants.
>> Even for "tiny" project you can spend a few week or more
>> to find right person.
>> But you can form your projects as request for bids,
>> publish it and receive many propositions same day.
>
> Why not just hire an expert for decent money?
I am this expert. Some thousands experts available online too.
> By the same token, it is a well-known fact that horse manure
> is good for your digestion. Trillions of flies can't possibly
> be wrong.
Everyone, who don't know how to use open auctions,
can use your illustration.
> Numbers on their own don't illustrate /anything/ properly.
> You need semantics, too. Let's see what that 433 tells me.
> We'll assume (in the absence of information to the contrary)
> that you're halfway through your threescore years and ten.
> We'll further assume that you've been writing these programs
> since you were 22 (to allow for a university education).
> So you've had 13 years. But everyone needs a holiday, so let's
> assume 4 weeks a year, or 52 weeks all told. That knocks
> it down to 12 years. We'll further assume that you spend
> 4 weeks a year trying to keep up to date in your field.
> So we're at around 11 years now. We'll assume you work
> for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, so your total available
> time is 11 * 52 * 5 * 8 hours, which is 22880 hours.
> Dividing that by 433, we get a little over 50 hours per
> project.
>
> So /if/ you're really that old, and if you've really
> spent that long, then your average project time is
> just over a week. If you're actually much younger,
> then clearly it's much lower. These statistics suggest
> that few if any of the 433 programs were large ones.
You can check you calculations on-line.
Please, use link below my signature.
>> Just 10 minutes for testing?
>
> I hope you focus primarily on customers who speak your native
> language, since there is less chance for misunderstanding.
I dislike to speak with my customers.
Written messages only. In English.
I prefer communicate via RentACoder to record anything.
Useful in arbitrage process.
> I also hope your native language is not English.
Yes, I am not native speaker.
This is important argument for my competitors.
> I have no problem with outsourcing.
Good to know.
> I just don't think it's
> a good idea to hire Jason from Leeds to do it, if doing so
> would distract him from his homework.
What you dislike more Jason or Leeds? :-)
Where you find partners to prepare your homework?
Sergey I.Grachyov
>>
>> There is no any "so". I have my own opinion what and where I can post.
>
> PLONK for rudeness and imbecility.
Nothing to say about discussed topic?
Don't worry - It's normal for this thread.
--
Sergey I.Grachyov
Randy Howard
> > No, it isn't. This isn't a courtroom.
>
> You are mention Mr Howard so often... You are his lawyer!
No, he is not. Actually, I'm not sure who he is. I don't
spend too much time trying to remember names that aren't
"real names", at least in the Usenet sense. I don't mean
to be insulting, the "infobahn" name rings a bell I think,
but being too lazy to chase down google archives, I'll just
chalk it up to divine intervention. :-)
> I will decide myself what spam is and how to use this group.
You will rapidly be ignored if you disregard common Usenet
practices. Keep it up too long, and you're ISP may get a
large number of complaints and drop you.
> > Nevertheless,
> > having read his articles for a number of years, I have a
> > huge respect for his knowledge and ability in computer
> > programming. I have considerably less information about
> > your programming ability than I do his. It is, however,
> > almost certainly true that he has never bothered to
> > compete in the auction market you describe, for the simple
> > reason that he'd want to charge a realistic rate for writing
> > a high quality product. Consequently, he simply would not
> > survive in the low-grade world of auctions. (Well, not
> > without compromising his principles. I have no information
> > on whether he'd be prepared to do that, but I suspect he
> > would not.)
>
> In short words - just can't compete with me.
I am not morally opposed to them at all. And I assure you it
is not a matter of 'can't compete'. It's a matter of not
wanting to compete on price. I see no reason to try and underbid
you at $10/hour when it is quite easy to make an order of
magnitude more than that elsewhere, and on far more interesting
work.
> No one is responsible for failed projects.
You are incredibly naive if you really think that way.
> According Forrester research -
> more than 3 million U.S. jobs will move offshore by 2015.
> I will take some.
Good. If you can outsource having your grass mowed for less
than doing it yourself, you should. If the kind of programming
you do is only worth $10 an hour, then I am happy to see it
done elsewhere.
> Mr. infobahn just say: If you don't know how to write programs,
> or just out of time - you can hire Mr. Sergey I.Grachyov
From what I have seen so far, I'd be shocked if anyone would be
doing that for you any time soon out of the programmers that hang
out here.
> > As
> > for your contacts, we've already established that these are
> > people who don't know anything about programming, so I would
> > question their value.
>
> Some people don't know anything about programming,
Unfortunately, some of them have to resort to sites like rentacoder
to find work as a result. Even worse, quite a few of them get
very high paying jobs and somehow manage to go years without being
caught out. I think we can all think of one well-known participant
of this newsgroup who fits that description to a T. Luckily, most
of them got exorcised during the .com .gone collapse and some have
had to flee overseas to find any sort of work at all. Good riddance.
> I am this expert. Some thousands experts available online too.
Yes, it's quite obvious from your writing that you think you
are an expert. Hint: The true experts never describe themselves
as an expert. They don't have to be so arrogant, their
reputation accomplishes the same and much more without being
stupid. Another hint: The more you know, the more you realize
how much you do not know and will never have time to know. Only
someone with a very narrow view could in good conscience describe
themselves as an expert.
> > I hope you focus primarily on customers who speak your native
> > language, since there is less chance for misunderstanding.
>
> I dislike to speak with my customers.
> Written messages only. In English.
That might be an improvement over voice, but your written English
is obviously not native. There have been several cases already
in this thread where communication problems have led to
misunderstanding. This is the last thing you want to have happen
on serious programming projects.
> I prefer communicate via RentACoder to record anything.
> Useful in arbitrage process.
Successful programming projects don't have or need an arbitrage
process.
> Yes, I am not native speaker.
> This is important argument for my competitors.
No doubt.
Sergey I.Grachyov
>
> You will rapidly be ignored if you disregard common Usenet
> practices. Keep it up too long, and you're ISP may get a
> large number of complaints and drop you.
I state: my original post is fully compatible with common usenet practice.
You can find address for complains in the "X-Complaints-To:" header.
> I am not morally opposed to them at all. And I assure you it
> is not a matter of 'can't compete'. It's a matter of not
> wanting to compete on price.
Not in price. Many factors.
May be buyer will be impressed by your CV.
He will choose your bid, pay your standart rate and ignore my $10/hour
offer.
Possible? ;-)
> I see no reason to try and underbid
> you at $10/hour when it is quite easy to make an order of
> magnitude more than that elsewhere, and on far more interesting
> work.
Assume you are working on your own for company XYZ.
I don't know what XYZ is, I never use it.
Questions:
Should I post my opinion why XYZ is bad or good?
Should I post any reasons why can't follow your way?
Answers:
No and No.
But you and your "lawyer" posts opinion about open auctions.
>>> Those of us with a conscience feel obliged to record our
>>> failures on our CV, as well as our successes.
>>
>> According google - there are no failures.
>> No one is responsible for failed projects.
>
> You are incredibly naive if you really think that way.
You and Mr.infobahn are incredibly naive. No one will outline his failures
in CV.
>> According Forrester research -
>> more than 3 million U.S. jobs will move offshore by 2015.
>> I will take some.
>
> Good. If you can outsource having your grass mowed for less
> than doing it yourself, you should. If the kind of programming
> you do is only worth $10 an hour, then I am happy to see it
> done elsewhere.
My perfect programming worth $10/hour. My buyers are happy.
Good to know - you are not one of "NoMoreOffshore" team.
>> Mr. infobahn just say: If you don't know how to write programs,
>> or just out of time - you can hire Mr. Sergey I.Grachyov
>
> From what I have seen so far, I'd be shocked if anyone would be
> doing that for you any time soon out of the programmers that hang
> out here.
I am sorry - I plan to shock you this way.
>> I am this expert. Some thousands experts available online too.
>
> Yes, it's quite obvious from your writing that you think you
> are an expert.
My buyers rates me as expert as well.
>> I prefer communicate via RentACoder to record anything.
>> Useful in arbitrage process.
>
> Successful programming projects don't have or need an arbitrage
> process.
Yes, but no one can predict: is current project success or not.
Also - I act according RAC's rules:
"If you are working with the other party and simply communicating offsite,
then you are unnecessarily putting yourself into a dangerous position".
Willem
) I state: my original post is fully compatible with common usenet practice.
Your original post was mostly an advertisement for RAC, and also a bit
an advertisement for yourself.
Sergey I.Grachyov
> an advertisement for yourself.
I will re-post it in reply to each "RAC not OK" message.
Mr. Howard promises me problems with my ISP.
I think - he will register as RAC's coder before.
--
Sergey I.Grachyov.
Randy Howard
> > Your original post was mostly an advertisement for RAC, and also a bit
> > an advertisement for yourself.
>
> I will re-post it in reply to each "RAC not OK" message.
> Mr. Howard promises me problems with my ISP.
You definitely having a reading comprehension problem. I did not do
anything of the kind. Rather than explain it again, why not just
reread the original?
> I think - he will register as RAC's coder before.
Want to bet?
Programmer Dude
> Thats exactly what's going on. If you have a large database with
> collected codes you don't have to rewrite projects but slightly
> modify and sell to bunch of other 'dudes'. That is what destroys
> coding development and IT branch.
> IMO if you buy from such people you are killing or contributing
> to destroying the economy.
No, just destroying your view of what the economy *ought* to be.
There will always BE an economy.... just not the one WE want!!
While I hate the offshore trend right now, I believe we'll never
change it until we as programmers get our act together and start
offering something perceived as valuable to business, and a big
part of that is recognizing the difference between serious
professional programmer's, wannabes and "also rans".
MOST other professions with such a range of worker quality are
not taken very seriously. I believe that it will be only when we
offer a truly professional face that WE will be taken seriously.
Consider an example.
Around here--upper Midwest--every Wells Fargo ATM I visit has, in
large bright yellow letters, on at least two screens, the proudly
misspelled word, "CHEKCING". [teeth grind]
Says a lot about Q/A doesn't it. Large Yellow letters. Hard to
miss, and it makes me want to change banks every time I visit the
ATM. The sheer ineptness behind such a boner boggles my mind.
And having the work done by some non-English-speaking programmer
is no excuse. My work covers installs in S.America, Europe and
China, and you can believe I check, check and check again with
someone who knows how to f**king spell words in their language.
Let's just hope Wells Fargo's PMO incompetence doesn't extend to
the code that manages the $$.
Or, while I'm on the subject of "professional" programmers, this
example (can't name names on this one--not, not MS, the vendor
has a VB API):
I recently encountered a situation with a vendor API that resulted
in the following startling test:
Dim got_record As Boolean
got_record = object.FirstRecord()
If got_record Then
Print "Got Record!"
End If
If Not got_record Then
Print "Not Got Record!"
End If
Just imagine my jaw dropping when I ran this test and got:
Got Record!
Not Got Record!
?!?!?!?!?!
Reason turned out to be that the vendor implemented their boolean
as 0=false, 1=true and since VB's NOT just reverses bits, well,
Not(1) = (-2).
Investigation proves there is no thoughtful reason for such a daft
choice--apparently seemed like a good idea to someone who really
didn't understand the consequences (yet, inexplicably, was charged
with implementing a language and API).
[sigh]
Other than a self-selecting place like this (once nuubs are filtered),
for every ten programmers I meet, maybe two are really competent, at
least one or two *really* need to seek another profession, and the
others might be saved through intensive mentoring and shock therapy.
Until WE change that, until I have approximately the same guarentee
of quality I'd get seeking a lawyer or doctor, then we have little to
offer to offset cheap second/third world programmers.
And tell you what, many of those guys and gals treat it a lot more
seriously. The two Indian programmers in my office are very, very
sharp and capable.
Randy Howard
> >> I will re-post it in reply to each "RAC not OK" message.
> >> Mr. Howard promises me problems with my ISP.
> >
> > You definitely having a reading comprehension problem. I did not do
> > anything of the kind. Rather than explain it again, why not just
> > reread the original?
>
> "Keep it up too long, and you're ISP may get a large number of complaints
> and drop you."
>
No, you clearly missed something when learning English. There is a big
difference between "Mr. Howard promises me problems" and "you're ISP may
get a large number of complaints". I would suggest as an elementary
starting point looking up the differences between "promise" and "may".
www.dictionary.com might be sufficient.
If not, you may need to hire a professional translator.
Sergey I.Grachyov
>>>> Mr. Howard promises me problems with my ISP.
>>>
>>> You definitely having a reading comprehension problem. I did not do
>>> anything of the kind. Rather than explain it again, why not just
>>> reread the original?
I am sorry, I forgot: you are prefer 'western style':
"Someone somehow do something. May be. I am not sure."
Should be:
I will re-post it in reply to each "RAC not OK" message.
Btw, Mr. Howard can't promise me any problems with my ISP.
> No, you clearly missed something when learning English. There is a big
> difference between "Mr. Howard promises me problems" and "you're ISP may
> get a large number of complaints". I would suggest as an elementary
> starting point looking up the differences between "promise" and "may".
>
> www.dictionary.com might be sufficient.
>
> If not, you may need to hire a professional translator.
OK. I _may_ employ you as my translator.
You can't response "No, Thank you." because it an offer.
--
Sergey I.Grachyov.
Randy Howard
> > I am not morally opposed to them at all. And I assure you it
> > is not a matter of 'can't compete'. It's a matter of not
> > wanting to compete on price.
>
> Not in price. Many factors.
> May be buyer will be impressed by your CV.
> He will choose your bid, pay your standart rate and ignore my $10/hour
> offer.
> Possible? ;-)
Highly likely.
> >> No one is responsible for failed projects.
> >
> > You are incredibly naive if you really think that way.
>
> You and Mr.infobahn are incredibly naive. No one will outline his failures
> in CV.
I was referring to the obviously false statement which you made, that is
quoted above. Go ahead, please try and demonstrate how that is a rational
position to hold.
> My perfect programming worth $10/hour. My buyers are happy.
Anyone that thinks their programming is "perfect" ... well, let's just say
that nobody worth talking to about programming is so inexperienced that
their BS detector wouldn't redline upon reading it.
> >> Mr. infobahn just say: If you don't know how to write programs,
> >> or just out of time - you can hire Mr. Sergey I.Grachyov
> >
> > From what I have seen so far, I'd be shocked if anyone would be
> > doing that for you any time soon out of the programmers that hang
> > out here.
>
> I am sorry - I plan to shock you this way.
I'll be waiting.
> > Yes, it's quite obvious from your writing that you think you
> > are an expert.
>
> My buyers rates me as expert as well.
Well, if an auto mechanic recommended someone as the world's best
neural surgeon, that would be about as useful as the rating of "expert"
received from those that know nothing about programming and must hire
it out to the lowest bidder.
You might as well claim that your mother loves your code. It's equally
useful.
> > Successful programming projects don't have or need an arbitrage
> > process.
>
> Yes, but no one can predict: is current project success or not.
You can at least get some advance warning and stop a problem before it
gets too far gone, provided it isn't what we have already decided to
call "tiny" and happens to quickly to save.
> Also - I act according RAC's rules:
> "If you are working with the other party and simply communicating offsite,
> then you are unnecessarily putting yourself into a dangerous position".
You don't suppose they tell you that to make sure they get their cut do
you? How could it be dangerous to send an email, fax or make a phone
call to someone without going through their website other than that?
Never mind, I don't really care one way or the other about their rules.
--
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)
"For some reason most people seem to be born without the part
of the brain that understands pointers." -- Joel Spolsky
Sergey I.Grachyov
>>> is not a matter of 'can't compete'. It's a matter of not
>>> wanting to compete on price.
>>
>> Not in price. Many factors.
>> May be buyer will be impressed by your CV.
>> He will choose your bid, pay your standart rate and ignore my $10/hour
>> offer.
>> Possible? ;-)
>
> Highly likely.
Do you want to place your bid? :-)
There some $1000+ projects every week.
Ah, I forget: You have many sofisticated reasons to stay away from
RentACoder.
So, not "Highly likely", but "impossible" :-(
>>>>> Those of us with a conscience feel obliged to record our
>>>>> failures on our CV, as well as our successes.
>>>>
>>>> According google - there are no failures.
>>>> No one is responsible for failed projects.
>>>
>>> You are incredibly naive if you really think that way.
>>
>> You and Mr.infobahn are incredibly naive. No one will outline his
failures
>> in CV.
>
> I was referring to the obviously false statement which you made, that is
> quoted above. Go ahead, please try and demonstrate how that is a rational
> position to hold.
1. Obvious: There are many failed projects.
2. According to Mr.infoban: programmers "obliged to record our failures on
our CV"
3. I can't find these resumes via google
4. My conclusion(sarcasm): "No one is responsible for failed projects."
> Anyone that thinks their programming is "perfect"...
You can't follow me? I wish you to update your skills.
>> My buyers rates me as expert as well.
>
> Well, if an auto mechanic recommended someone as the world's best
> neural surgeon, that would be about as useful as the rating of "expert"
> received from those that know nothing about programming and must hire
> it out to the lowest bidder.
May be even auto mechanic can't recommend to use any of your skills.
Beside your "skill" to degrade my achievements.
> You might as well claim that your mother loves your code. It's equally
> useful.
May be your mother dislike my completed projects too.
I will use RentACoder again and again.
But my current and feature buyers doesn't know anything about hers opinion.
>>> Successful programming projects don't have or need an arbitrage
>>> process.
>>
>> Yes, but no one can predict: is current project success or not.
>
> You can at least get some advance warning and stop a problem before it
> gets too far gone, provided it isn't what we have already decided to
> call "tiny" and happens to quickly to save.
This warning should be recorded. Via on-site message.
Just voice message isn't enough.
>> Also - I act according RAC's rules:
>> "If you are working with the other party and simply communicating
offsite,
>> then you are unnecessarily putting yourself into a dangerous position".
>
> You don't suppose they tell you that to make sure they get their cut do
> you? How could it be dangerous to send an email, fax or make a phone
> call to someone without going through their website other than that?
> Never mind, I don't really care one way or the other about their rules.
Examples:
1. You post request for bids: "I need product. With features ABC and XYZ and
..."
2. I win auction and start coding.
3. You phone me: "Update. You can exclude feature ABC from final product. I
need feature CCC instead of ABC"
4. OK. Update done.
5. I complete my work and report "Done."
6. You are complain: "I post request for bids. I outline feature ABC. Where
is it???"
7. Arbitration begin. Since we have off-site communication via phone -
RAC's staff can't verify what you say to me via phone.
There are many other variants.
I have been involved into arbitration 13 times.
So, If you are really want to phone me, scenario will be:
3. You phone me: "Update. You can exclude feature ABC from final product. I
need feature CCC instead of ABC"
3a. I will record your phone order via on-site message.
3b. I will wait for your response: "Yes, this is exactly what I mean"
Sergey I.Grachyov
>> Mr. Howard promises me problems with my ISP.
>
> You definitely having a reading comprehension problem. I did not do
> anything of the kind. Rather than explain it again, why not just
> reread the original?
OK. Original was:
"Keep it up too long, and you're ISP may get a large number of complaints
and drop you."
So, this is your own "reading comprehension problem". Or leakageof memory.
>> I think - he will register as RAC's coder before.
>
> Want to bet?
Yes, of course.
--
Sergey I.Grachyov.
Randy Howard
> I am sorry, I forgot: you are prefer 'western style':
No, I prefer that you not attempt to put your pigeon English words
in my mouth. It's really simple. A perfect programmer should not
have a problem with the logic.
> Btw, Mr. Howard can't promise me any problems with my ISP.
Finally a correct statement.
--
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)
Randy Howard
> > Anyone that thinks their programming is "perfect"...
>
> You can't follow me? I wish you to update your skills.
Yes, that *must* be the problem. (sarcasm)
> I have been involved into arbitration 13 times.
Case closed.
Programmer Dude
> Btw, Mr. Howard can't promise me any problems with my ISP.
Guys.... stop it.
I took Randy to be saying something along the lines of, "If
you leave your shoelaces untied, you may trip and fall."
He wasn't promising--or threatening--to trip you.
Just offering a prediction or likely outcome.
infobahn
> Ufit writes:
>
>
>>Thats exactly what's going on. If you have a large database with
>>collected codes you don't have to rewrite projects but slightly
>>modify and sell to bunch of other 'dudes'. That is what destroys
>>coding development and IT branch.
(Ufit: this is called "code re-use", and it's a good thing.)
>>IMO if you buy from such people you are killing or contributing
>>to destroying the economy.
(Ufit: whose economy? Not the economy of the people who are
being economical with programming resources!)
>
>
> No, just destroying your view of what the economy *ought* to be.
> There will always BE an economy.... just not the one WE want!!
Depends on who "WE" is.
>
> While I hate the offshore trend right now,
If you mean the exodus of jobs from the USA, please remember
that this is an international newsgroup. One man's offshore
is another man's onshore. What's the opposite of exodus? Inodus? :-)
> I believe we'll never
> change it until we as programmers get our act together and start
> offering something perceived as valuable to business, and a big
> part of that is recognizing the difference between serious
> professional programmer's, wannabes and "also rans".
That's easy. Review their Usenet history. :-)
> MOST other professions with such a range of worker quality are
> not taken very seriously. I believe that it will be only when we
> offer a truly professional face that WE will be taken seriously.
Is it not "truly professional" to use stuff again when we
know it works? (The original complaint here appears to have
been against code re-use.)
> Consider an example.
>
> Around here--upper Midwest--every Wells Fargo ATM I visit has, in
> large bright yellow letters, on at least two screens, the proudly
> misspelled word, "CHEKCING". [teeth grind]
How do they feel about shotguns in your area?
> And having the work done by some non-English-speaking programmer
> is no excuse.
Especially if the program is to be written, tested and used
in, say, Nairobi. Please remember that this is an international newsgroup.
<snip>
> I recently encountered a situation with a vendor API that resulted
> in the following startling test:
>
> Dim got_record As Boolean
>
> got_record = object.FirstRecord()
>
> If got_record Then
> Print "Got Record!"
> End If
> If Not got_record Then
> Print "Not Got Record!"
> End If
>
> Just imagine my jaw dropping when I ran this test and got:
>
> Got Record!
> Not Got Record!
The joy of programming. :-)
>
> Until WE change that, until I have approximately the same guarentee
> of quality I'd get seeking a lawyer or doctor, then we have little to
> offer to offset cheap second/third world programmers.
Three worlds? So far as we know right now, there is only one world.
Let's not spoil it by behaving divisively.
> And tell you what, many of those guys and gals treat it a lot more
> seriously. The two Indian programmers in my office are very, very
> sharp and capable.
Then you're lucky. Many programmers are neither sharp nor capable,
and (at least in my experience) nationality has little or nothing
to do with it.
infobahn
> Do you want to place your bid? :-)
> There some $1000+ projects every week.
If such projects take more than, say, three days to code, test,
and UAT, then it's probably not worth a professional programmer's
time to do them.
> Ah, I forget: You have many sofisticated reasons to stay away from
> RentACoder.
Yes. RentACoder encourages cheap, shoddy programming for users
too unsophisticated to know when they're being ripped off.
> 1. Obvious: There are many failed projects.
> 2. According to Mr.infoban: programmers "obliged to record our failures on
> our CV"
I note your lack of attention to detail twice in this item.
I will skip over the inappropriate use of "Mr." in conjunction
with an obvious nickname, since that could simply be a translation
issue. But your misspelling of that nickname indicates that you
can't be bothered to get people's names right. If I were your
customer, that would seriously annoy me, to the point where
I might just call off the deal, even if I were naive enough to
have hired you in the process. Secondly, you have placed a direct
quotation out of context to convey a false impression. What I
actually said was: "Those of us with a conscience feel obliged
to record our failures on our CV, as well as our successes."
Note that not all programmers have consciences.
> 3. I can't find these resumes via google
Two problems here. Firstly, your ability (or otherwise) to use
a search engine is unrelated to programmers' CV honesty.
Secondly, the item shows a worrying tendency to believe that
something only exists if it's on Google. My CV is /not/ on
Google. It's on my hard disk. You can search Google all you
like, but you won't find it.
> 4. My conclusion(sarcasm): "No one is responsible for failed projects."
False premises lead to false conclusions.
>>Anyone that thinks their programming is "perfect"...
>
>
> You can't follow me?
A programmer who believes he is perfect is merely blind to
his imperfections.
> I wish you to update your skills.
All good programmers seek to be educated continually.
>>>My buyers rates me as expert as well.
>>
>>Well, if an auto mechanic recommended someone as the world's best
>>neural surgeon, that would be about as useful as the rating of "expert"
>>received from those that know nothing about programming and must hire
>>it out to the lowest bidder.
>
> May be even auto mechanic can't recommend to use any of your skills.
You appear to have missed the point.
> Beside your "skill" to degrade my achievements.
But the only evidence we have so far about your "achievements" is
that you've hacked out hundreds of quickie programs and flogged
them cheap. Any idiot can do that. Where's the achievement there?
>>You might as well claim that your mother loves your code. It's equally
>>useful.
>
> May be your mother dislike my completed projects too.
That's not the point. The point is whether a professional
programmer would consider your work to be competent.
> I will use RentACoder again and again.
Fabulous. I wish you every success. The sucker market is
clearly booming.
> But my current and feature buyers doesn't know anything about hers opinion.
Nor do they have the skills to assess whether a program is
good or bad.
(BTW I think he means "future", not "feature". English
is full of phonic traps.)
>>>Yes, but no one can predict: is current project success or not.
>>
>>You can at least get some advance warning and stop a problem before it
>>gets too far gone, provided it isn't what we have already decided to
>>call "tiny" and happens to quickly to save.
>
> This warning should be recorded. Via on-site message.
> Just voice message isn't enough.
Generally a walk through the office is sufficient. If you
have good people, they'll generally let you know when there
is a problem.
>>How could it be dangerous to send an email, fax or make a phone
>>call to someone without going through their website other than that?
>>Never mind, I don't really care one way or the other about their rules.
>
>
> Examples:
> 1. You post request for bids: "I need product. With features ABC and XYZ and
> ..."
> 2. I win auction and start coding.
> 3. You phone me: "Update. You can exclude feature ABC from final product. I
> need feature CCC instead of ABC"
"Fine. Please let me have the change request in writing over
your signature, so that I can be sure that the change is
authorised." Standard practice.
> 4. OK. Update done.
> 5. I complete my work and report "Done."
> 6. You are complain: "I post request for bids. I outline feature ABC. Where
> is it???"
> 7. Arbitration begin. Since we have off-site communication via phone -
> RAC's staff can't verify what you say to me via phone.
Nor can you. Hence the importance for proper tracking of
change requests. This is SOP in professional organisations.
gooch
Sergey I.Grachyov wrote:
> Do you want to place your bid? :-)
> There some $1000+ projects every week.
> Ah, I forget: You have many sofisticated reasons to stay away from
> RentACoder.
> So, not "Highly likely", but "impossible" :-(
>
> Just voice message isn't enough.
>
I think you are just missing the entire point Sergey. The first point I
think is being made is that if any reputable software organization
operated as RAC does they would not remain in business very long.
Secondly, just because you can find someone to pay a small fee for a
steming pile of dog crap does not make it a gormet meal.
I do not know what kind of training you have but it obviously was not
very good. There are many software developers out there each with their
own way of doing things but some of the things that make one good at it
are an ability to wrap their hands around a difficult problem and find
a solution to it that is both cost effective and meets all of the
requirements of the user.
The fact that you do not want to talk to your client is disturbing
considering that this is the person paying you. As far as them changing
requirements, get used to it. Requirements changes are the norm not the
exception. Why? Because often the customer does not understand the
problem fully up front which is part of the reason they are hiring
someone else to help them solve it. This leads right in to the other
point being made, a glowing review of your code from someone who knows
nothing about it is not saying much. A true test will come a year or
two down the road when someone has to do some upgrades to your code. I
would be willing to bet that it would be virtually impossible to
decipher.
Finally you claim to bid your projects based on a $10 an hour value. Do
you maintain any metrics to allow you to more accurately estimate your
time on the next bid or do you just guess? I am pretty sure I know the
answer to that one. I have been working on embedded systems for about 3
years now after completing my undergraduate work and I am already
making 3 times your $10/hr. I could make $10/hr flipping burgers.
I I think RAC is a good fit for you because judging by your rants here
you would have little luck working with others in a real office
setting. Now that I think about it it may be a good thing that you
don't communicate directly with your clients. You would likely not get
nearly the work you do now.
Programmer Dude
>> No, just destroying your view of what the economy *ought* to be.
>> There will always BE an economy.... just not the one WE want!!
>
> Depends on who "WE" is.
Those complaining about the economy being ruined.
>> MOST other professions with such a range of worker quality are
>> not taken very seriously. I believe that it will be only when we
>> offer a truly professional face that WE will be taken seriously.
>
> Is it not "truly professional" to use stuff again when we
> know it works?
Of course it is. I do it all the time!
Although, caveat: "Knowing it works" is not enough. It's knowing
it's well-designed, well-tested and appropriate for the task.
(You may have meant that by "know it works".)
> (The original complaint here appears to have been against code
> re-use.)
Right, but I have no real interest in RAC or the battle over it.
I was just ranting in general about the stunning variety of
quality among programmers and suggesting that the pros won't get
our props until we weed out the weenies.
>> Around here--upper Midwest--every Wells Fargo ATM I visit has, in
>> large bright yellow letters, on at least two screens, the proudly
>> misspelled word, "CHEKCING". [teeth grind]
>
> How do they feel about shotguns in your area?
?? Well, there's a lot of hunters, so there's a lot of shotguns.
Are you suggesting we shoot the ATMs or the programmers?
>> And having the work done by some non-English-speaking programmer
>> is no excuse.
>
> Especially if the program is to be written, tested and used
> in, say, Nairobi. Please remember that this is an international
> newsgroup.
I'm well aware of that, and it's irrelevant to my point. Which
is that ANY programmer who produces blatently misspelled words
in bold, obvious and repeated places in the UI and then allows
that crap to go to production is a twit.
And not just the programmer, but the entire Q/A team who let such
a braindead thing happen. It is *utterly* *inexcusable*. I can't
think of a single explanation that would permit continued
employment by anyone involved.
It has NOTHING to do with where the programmer/QA team lived or
worked. It has NOTHING to do with what language they spoke.
I would think it obvious that if you are coding for a language
you don't speak *fluently* you need help and lots of double-
checks for correctness. And even when you are fluent in the
language, for pete's sake, CHECK YOUR SPELLING!
Otherwise, you look like you're walking around with your fly open.
>> Just imagine my jaw dropping when I ran this test and got:
>>
>> Got Record!
>> Not Got Record!
>
> The joy of programming. :-)
There was *no* joy in Mudville on that one!
>> Until WE change that, until I have approximately the same guarentee
>> of quality I'd get seeking a lawyer or doctor, then we have little to
>> offer to offset cheap second/third world programmers.
>
> Three worlds? So far as we know right now, there is only one world.
Go look up the terms "First World", "Second World" and "Third World".
They do have specific meanings, which (basically) refer to the technical
level of a country. This almost always coincides with the cost of
living. Therefore, 2nd & 3rd world programmers are far cheaper (maybe
I should have said "less expensive"?) than those of us living in 1st
world countries with their higher cost of living.
(And, actually, there are many, many worlds circling many, many stars.)
> Let's not spoil it by behaving divisively.
?? You seem to have missed the point of my post: which was quite the
opposite of divisive. UNLESS you're (generic you) are the sort of
programmer described in the OP. Then I most definitely want you (again,
generic you) divided from the rest of us. Permanently.
>> And tell you what, many of those guys and gals treat it a lot more
>> seriously. The two Indian programmers in my office are very, very
>> sharp and capable.
>
> Then you're lucky. Many programmers are neither sharp nor capable,
> and (at least in my experience) nationality has little or nothing
> to do with it.
[shrug] Our experience differs, then. What I've encountered is a
stronger work ethic (in general) in non-Americans--I get the sense
they take their work more seriously and have a greater appreciation
for being employeed than many Americans.
We may be seeing a difference between those living in their own
country and those who've taken the leap to another country. The
foreign programmers I've met have lived in the USA. I've never
dealt with OUS programmers directly.
Randy Howard
says...
> infobahn writes:
> >> MOST other professions with such a range of worker quality are
> >> not taken very seriously. I believe that it will be only when we
> >> offer a truly professional face that WE will be taken seriously.
> >
> > Is it not "truly professional" to use stuff again when we
> > know it works?
>
> Of course it is. I do it all the time!
Surely neither of you would "use stuff again" from one project to
another when the employer was different (and they owned the IP)
right? That's not only unethical, it's illegal in most civilized
countries.
That appears to be exactly what happens regularly on some of these
rent-a-tech sites.
> I was just ranting in general about the stunning variety of
> quality among programmers and suggesting that the pros won't get
> our props until we weed out the weenies.
It'll happen naturally.
> ?? Well, there's a lot of hunters, so there's a lot of shotguns.
> Are you suggesting we shoot the ATMs or the programmers?
Sounds like a new FPS video game.
> is that ANY programmer who produces blatently misspelled words
> in bold, obvious and repeated places in the UI and then allows
> that crap to go to production is a twit.
:-)
> And not just the programmer, but the entire Q/A team who let such
> a braindead thing happen. It is *utterly* *inexcusable*. I can't
> think of a single explanation that would permit continued
> employment by anyone involved.
Spelling incorrectly seems to be the "in" thing these days. People
do intentionally. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me why they
think it is a good thing, but there it is.
--
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)
infobahn
>
> infobahn writes:
>
> > Is it not "truly professional" to use stuff again when we
> > know it works?
>
> Of course it is. I do it all the time!
>
> Although, caveat: "Knowing it works" is not enough. It's knowing
> it's well-designed, well-tested and appropriate for the task.
> (You may have meant that by "know it works".)
Yes, among other things. <Insert quality requirement of your
choice here, just as long as it's not that bunch of lusers who
ended up in QA because the company can't bring itself to actually
fire them; you know, the ones who write polysyllabic words because
they think it's clever so to do, although they don't actually
know what the words mean.>
> >> Around here--upper Midwest--every Wells Fargo ATM I visit has, in
> >> large bright yellow letters, on at least two screens, the proudly
> >> misspelled word, "CHEKCING". [teeth grind]
> >
> > How do they feel about shotguns in your area?
>
> ?? Well, there's a lot of hunters, so there's a lot of shotguns.
> Are you suggesting we shoot the ATMs or the programmers?
Yes. No! That would be illegal. Well, check your local ordinances
(and ordnances), just in case. You never know your luck.
> [...] ANY programmer who produces blatently misspelled words
> in bold, obvious and repeated places in the UI and then allows
> that crap to go to production is a twit.
s/blatently/blatantly/ # g,d&r
But yes, I agree. (And I know; Usenet doesn't count as a production
environment.)
> And not just the programmer, but the entire Q/A team who let such
> a braindead thing happen. It is *utterly* *inexcusable*. I can't
> think of a single explanation that would permit continued
> employment by anyone involved.
I can think of several, up to and including nepotism.
> >> Until WE change that, until I have approximately the same guarentee
> >> of quality I'd get seeking a lawyer or doctor, then we have little to
> >> offer to offset cheap second/third world programmers.
> >
> > Three worlds? So far as we know right now, there is only one world.
>
> Go look up the terms "First World", "Second World" and "Third World".
> They do have specific meanings, which (basically) refer to the technical
> level of a country.
I'm aware of these divisive expressions. I just don't think it's a
good idea to use them. Just my two cents. I can't expect the world
and his dog to share my principles (which others might not even see
/as/ principles and won't know what I'm making all the fuss about),
so forget I ever said anything if you like.
> (And, actually, there are many, many worlds circling many, many stars.)
You have chapter and verse? :-)
> What I've encountered is a
> stronger work ethic (in general) in non-Americans--I get the sense
> they take their work more seriously and have a greater appreciation
> for being employeed than many Americans.
I wouldn't know. The Americans I've met have generally been reasonably
hard-working and clueful, but we don't get many over here.
> We may be seeing a difference between those living in their own
> country and those who've taken the leap to another country.
Possibly, although I've come across plenty of utter idiots from -
well, from Country X. But on the other hand, I've also come across
a couple of accomplished programmers from Country X. I'm afraid
excellence is the exception. (It's marvellous to find yourself
on a site where it's the norm!)
Alan Balmer
<randy...@FOOverizonBAR.net> wrote:
>In article <1m2dv0l3ees3veha0...@4ax.com>, Ch...@Sonnack.com
>says...
>> infobahn writes:
>> >> MOST other professions with such a range of worker quality are
>> >> not taken very seriously. I believe that it will be only when we
>> >> offer a truly professional face that WE will be taken seriously.
>> >
>> > Is it not "truly professional" to use stuff again when we
>> > know it works?
>>
>> Of course it is. I do it all the time!
>
>Surely neither of you would "use stuff again" from one project to
>another when the employer was different (and they owned the IP)
>right? That's not only unethical, it's illegal in most civilized
>countries.
>
>That appears to be exactly what happens regularly on some of these
>rent-a-tech sites.
>
In the normal course of events, code generated by a rent-a-tech is
probably *not* owned by the entity which contracted for it.
Even when I contract to assign copyright to a client, I usually
specifically reserve (or grant a non-exclusive license for) some
specified body of reusable code.
--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
removebalmerc...@att.net
Programmer Dude
>>> Is it not "truly professional" to use stuff again when we
>>> know it works?
>>
>> Of course it is. I do it all the time!
>
> Surely neither of you would "use stuff again" from one project to
> another when the employer was different (and they owned the IP)
> right? That's not only unethical, it's illegal in most civilized
> countries.
Indeed! [grin] You'd think I'd have learned by now that "it goes
without saying" does NOT apply to amUSENET!
>> I was just ranting in general about the stunning variety of
>> quality among programmers and suggesting that the pros won't get
>> our props until we weed out the weenies.
>
> It'll happen naturally.
Eventually, yep. We are a very new industry, and there was a time
when doctors, for e.g., were as varied in competence as programmers
are now.
>> And not just the programmer, but the entire Q/A team who let such
>> a braindead thing happen. It is *utterly* *inexcusable*. I can't
>> think of a single explanation that would permit continued
>> employment by anyone involved.
>
> Spelling incorrectly seems to be the "in" thing these days. People
> do intentionally. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me why they
> think it is a good thing, but there it is.
Do you mean other than the pseudo-artsy "i" and the many deliberate
amUSENET/IM/blog lexical shortcuts? Yesh.
Possibly part of the anti-intellectualism trend that's been going
on since (per one author's opinion) 1955.
I do see signs of hope in shows like CSI and the new Numb3rs. As
flashy/silly as they are, they at least represent the idea of power
through skill and knowledge.
Even in a casual medium like this, I TRY to get it right.
(But not hard enough to bother with spell checkers.)
Programmer Dude
>> [...] ANY programmer who produces blatently misspelled words
>> in bold, obvious and repeated places in the UI and then allows
>> that crap to go to production is a twit.
>
> s/blatently/blatantly/ # g,d&r
LOL.... and OUCH! See, I feel bad about that (not about your seeing
it, about my committing the error at all). Even in a casual medium
like this, I strive to make my aspect as perfect as possible (knowing
it's not possible, but that doesn't make it an unworthy goal).
> (And I know; Usenet doesn't count as a production environment.)
Right. And you can believe I'm far more precise in that environment.
Or, getting back to the exact point, if I were creating a UI for use
in another country, I'd have a number of very fluent people check my
work.
I think, like the Samurai of old, I'd have to commit sepuku from the
sheer shame of it!
>> And not just the programmer, but the entire Q/A team who let such
>> a braindead thing happen. It is *utterly* *inexcusable*. I can't
>> think of a single explanation that would permit continued
>> employment by anyone involved.
>
> I can think of several, up to and including nepotism.
Ah.
s/single explanation/single acceptable explanation/
(Second Reminder to Self: Always spell it out precisely on amUSENET. :-)
>>> Three worlds? So far as we know right now, there is only one world.
>>
>> Go look up the terms "First World", "Second World" and "Third World".
>> They do have specific meanings, which (basically) refer to the technical
>> level of a country.
>
> I'm aware of these divisive expressions. I just don't think it's a
> good idea to use them. Just my two cents. I can't expect the world
> and his dog to share my principles (which others might not even see
> /as/ principles and won't know what I'm making all the fuss about),
> so forget I ever said anything if you like.
Forget what? ;-|
(Seriously: is it the concepts of 1st/2nd/3rd that are the issue? To
me, they're just classifications based mostly on technological level.)
>> (And, actually, there are many, many worlds circling many, many stars.)
>
> You have chapter and verse? :-)
Any number of astronomy publications. We've detected worlds in other
star systems. But for that matter, you can SEE other worlds in your
own night sky. The Greeks called them "Wanderers".... ;->
>> What I've encountered is a
>> stronger work ethic (in general) in non-Americans--I get the sense
>> they take their work more seriously and have a greater appreciation
>> for being employeed than many Americans.
>
> I wouldn't know. The Americans I've met have generally been reasonably
> hard-working and clueful, but we don't get many over here.
(Where is "over here"?) We may be seeing a similar situation regarding
foreign workers, then.
> Possibly, although I've come across plenty of utter idiots from -
> well, from Country X. But on the other hand, I've also come across
> a couple of accomplished programmers from Country X. I'm afraid
> excellence is the exception. (It's marvellous to find yourself
> on a site where it's the norm!)
Years ago I dropped all amUSENET participation save this group.
I do like the size and the quality of participant.
CBFalconer
>
... snip ...
>
> [shrug] Our experience differs, then. What I've encountered is a
> stronger work ethic (in general) in non-Americans--I get the sense
> they take their work more seriously and have a greater appreciation
> for being employeed than many Americans.
>
> We may be seeing a difference between those living in their own
> country and those who've taken the leap to another country. The
> foreign programmers I've met have lived in the USA. I've never
> dealt with OUS programmers directly.
Not just programmers, but people in general who can get up off
their duff and emigrate to a foreign country tend to have more
initiative than those who stay home. After a certain age this urge
to look for greener fields is greatly dulled. Silly things like
marriage and children also have an effect.
In a way the size of the USA can produce the same effect without
the language barriers. Boston to LA is at least as traumatic as
Boston to Stockholm, say.
--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
Programmer Dude
>> We may be seeing a difference between those living in their own
>> country and those who've taken the leap to another country. The
>> foreign programmers I've met have lived in the USA. I've never
>> dealt with OUS programmers directly.
>
> Not just programmers, but people in general who can get up off
> their duff and emigrate to a foreign country tend to have more
> initiative than those who stay home. After a certain age this urge
> to look for greener fields is greatly dulled. Silly things like
> marriage and children also have an effect.
Very true!
> In a way the size of the USA can produce the same effect without
> the language barriers. Boston to LA is at least as traumatic as
> Boston to Stockholm, say.
Speaking as someone who was born in New York, did the "Wonder Bread"
years in the midwest, moved to Los Angeles for 20 years and ended up
back in the midwest....
...you betchyer bippy it's traumatic!
And if you thing (big city) Boston to (huge city) LA is traumatic,
you oughta try (huge city) LA to (medium city) Minneapolis/St.Paul.
Talk about culture shock!
[bwg] Admittedly, most of the shock was on *their* part.....