Tech jobs leaving home

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Tuesday, July 15, 2003 | Rachel Konrad - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[Myrddin]

I had a bunch of CS grads working on a project in 1991. A brief code review turned my stomach. It was time to teach those folks how to write quality code. Half of them were unwilling and left the project. Most of the balance of the staff are still on the project. Those folks point with some pride to an SEI level 3 certification. Another group on the same floor was inspired by the success and they have also achieved a level 3 certification. Both projects are classified, DoD efforts that have been running well over 20 years. That is exactly the kind of project/group that can achieve SEI level 3 or better. Short fuse projects rarely attain that level of quality.

[stanz]

Ironic that we live in the greatest country on earth and have to surrender our service sector to the lowest bidders.

[stanz]

So would I.

[Bush2000]

That almost sounds like a thumbs up for Clinton and the bubble economy.

Clinton had no control over the economy -- just as his predecessor and successor cannot control the economy. Every business cycle resurgence is a "bubble" of sorts. The same thing was said about the 80s. Sooner or later, the party ends and people are nursing hangovers. But it always comes back. It just takes time. And as for a "bubble economy", what do you expect? There's no rational explanation for consumer confidence. It's simply a phenomenon that exists. When it's running high and people are buying goods without reservations, you can call that a "bubble economy", if you like. Because most Americans are carrying an average of $5,000 worth of consumer debt. They're living beyond their means. And these phenomena have nothing to do with Clinton -- but, rather, human psychology.

[lelio]

if the Demos take up the issue of the H1B and L1 Visa, we might have a problem in 2004
Add in there "outsourcing" (both IT and manufacturing) and the Democrats can't loose in 2004.
Its so simple I can't believe they are not picking up on it. Millions of people have been displaced from their formerly high paying jobs. They're unhappy punching out potato chips instead of computer chips. Or they liked being in a call center versus cleaning toliets.
Course that would require the Democrats:
a) stop doing the mindless "Bush said this and that ... waaahhh!" that in the end doesn't get them anywhere
b) actually formulate a plan on how to combat the above problem
c) actually want to do something about it and not just have everyone on welfare

I'm not too optimistic. But hey, its free advice to the idiot party. They could easily win if they took this up as it would force Bush to do a 180 on his current economic plan of importing everything under the sun.

[A. Pole]

Add in there "outsourcing" (both IT and manufacturing) and the Democrats can't loose in 2004. Its so simple I can't believe they are not picking up on it.

I am afraid that they support the same policy.

[bvw]

I would like to discuss that SEI and its levels, yet I look for the proper setting to do so in.

[crazykatz]

You are MORE full of it than I first thought... in fact, it is pouring out of your eyes! You can't see the truth because YOU ARE SO FULL OF ___p.

Why don't you just move to India to be among your "free traitor" business buddies?

[crazykatz]

BINGO!! You win today's prize of a free BIG MAC!!

[crazykatz]

Funny you should mention a demo plan... I believe that, DEMO-rat, Bill Nelson of FL. is planning to push the anti-H1B thing and blame the whole H1b/L1 mess on Bush. Just you watch!

[Myrddin]

SEI is process oriented. The quality improvements required more than just chasing an SEI certification. It required mentoring of C coders in good habits of proper separation of header/implementation, full function prototyping, secure and appropriate use of libraries and system calls, consistent use of Makefiles and source code control, unit testing, integration, configuration management, etc. They don't teach that stuff to a CS student. That's a short list of what it took and none of that addresses the SEI process.

The build process for 40 subsystems (over 1 million lines of C & FORTRAN) takes 11 hours, 20 minutes. Repeatable. All files are marked with the build number so that build can be extracted from source code control anytime we need to replicate a problem. Repeatable. The reference machines in San Diego and Mons, Belgium are the same model, same OS, same patch levels, same source code release, same database. Config management is extremely stringent. When a defect is reported by the customer, the systems are identical and the result is repeatable. We train the customers at least 6 weeks in advance of the production release so they understand how to use all the new features. That reduces support calls and they don't mind taking a week of training + R&R in San Diego.

[dirtboy]

We had one team that tried to do a straight translation of assembly language code from 1969 to Java in 1999. It didn't work.

Gee, I wonder why?

[dirtboy]

Then I would suggest more writing courses--basic composition, business writing, and technical writing.

I took enough of those classes for a minor plus some. And they've always helped differentiate me from other folks. Especially nowadays, when there are many foreign workers versed in technology but who cannot write a coherent memo or specification.

[Poohbah]

I took enough of those classes for a minor plus some. And they've always helped differentiate me from other folks. Especially nowadays, when there are many foreign workers versed in technology but who cannot write a coherent memo or specification.

Many of their American counterparts aren't much better at it.

[dirtboy]

Many of their American counterparts aren't much better at it.

Yeppurs. About a month ago someone posted a three-sentence memo in the elevators about not taking up two parking spaces in the parking garage. It had four misspellings and two grammatical errors. Not exactly performance-review material.

[helper]

I don't know about that, I got a call from a Verizon Indian yesterday.

[bvw]

"The reference machines in San Diego and Mons, Belgium are the same model, same OS, same patch levels, same source code release, same database."

I almost went up to Rochester this winter to do some revisions on a guided vehicle that was cross-developed using a micro-Vax. My learned wisdom regarding the maintainence -- archiving -- of legacy systems is you have to archive the entire development system, hardware and all. Fortunately the fellow still had an old development system.

Otherwise, it's a conversion project, a new major release, at the least -- to bring up old software on cobbled together hardware and systems software. With the cobbling, the binaries usually won't mesh up and depending on the application, the whole megilla of regression tests might have to be run.

Still I've seen folks be maniac for making full system archival backups and then disposing of the hardware! I remember years ago coming across a room full of mag tapes -- unreadable, essentially. The tape drives to read them were obsolete, no longer manufactured and rare to find. In other words, the room of painstaking labeled, serialized and color coded mag tapes was a dump. A waste dump with air conditioning.

[bvw]

Hard to believe any more that I was a grammar school spelling bee champ, and rated very highly on a certfication test for techincal editing. My posts, and those of many others too, are rife with typos, bad spelling, poor word choice, missing words, extra words, bad grammar.

However if you ever read original historical correspondence you'll find similar levels of poor spelling and grammar miscues. Before the telegraph and telephone people dashed off corrsepondence evidently as quickly as we dash off replies.

In the age of the phone I believe correspondence became more formal and consequently expectations of proper spelling, grammar and composition in any writing grew higher.

[Poohbah]

Absolute worst: printing out the source code.

On paper that was NOT acid-free.

During Y2K, the guy doing remediation went to look up the code...and found binders full of browned paper with print faded to the same shade of brown.

[bvw]

Yeah, that is good -- or to microfiche. I wonder if there's a product that consists of a source listing with a bar code, to make entry of code from the listing possible. Text scanners aren't reliable enough.