Re: I need opinion

Chelly Green wrote:
>
> Michael Simpson wrote:

[Re: supply of "talent overseas"]

> > Most programmers here think of the Indian code shops when thinking
> > overseas.
>
> What does race have to do with coding abilities?

I didn't interpret Michael's remarks in that light. I presumed he meant "code shops in India", and I presume he also meant that, in general, those code shops will bid a lower price for doing equivalent programming work.

> > Swiss programmers don't count in that vein because there would
> > be no cost savings to send work to Switzerland.
>
> Please tell me how an Swiss programmer (an individual person) is any
> different than an American programmer, in terms of the code produced.

Code produced is not the issue. In general, programmers in Switzerland are paid more money than programmers in the US; hence, *all else being equal*, it would cost more to have the work done in Switzerland.

[...]

> Each person is an individual with their own unique abilities. These
> cannot be determined by looking at their environment alone.

Absolutely. But there are certain generalisations that can be made about relative salaries and costs, *on average*. For example, I can generalise that an apartment in Zurich will cost me more than an equivalent apartment in London (although of course I may get lucky and find an exception).

I also read into this that the average US programmer is scared that they are going to lose their job to some overseas programmer. This is a more interesting question.

Maybe there is good reason to be scared. The solution is simple:

• make your price the same or lower than the competition, *or*
• make your time to delivery shorter than the competition, *or*
• make your quality sufficiently higher than the competition so that your customer is happy to pay your price premium

This applies to all of us, not just US programmers.

-- 
Ian Johnston, Contracting at UBS, Zurich
Hacked electronic address to defeat junk mail; please edit when replying