Computer Science Canada

freelancebalkan

Author:  Dragan [ Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:48 pm ]
Post subject:  freelancebalkan

If you want, you can help to me and my friends and put our banner on your site, or if you want we can manage exchanging banners with yours sites

our banner is

http://www.freelancebalkan.com/baneri/mali%20baner-en.swf

site is www.freelancebalkan.com

Author:  Dan [ Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:13 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

Your site goes aginsted everything i blive in and i can only hope a lot of the users here would agree with that as Canadian programmers who care about the feuttuer of the industry.

All i can add is you get what you pay for.

Author:  Zeroth [ Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: freelancebalkan

I heartily agree. That site seems... like a ripoff. Any student that uses this site is just asking to be kicked out of school. Dan, can you delete this?

Author:  Dragan [ Thu Jul 03, 2008 5:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: freelancebalkan

Zeroth @ Thu Jul 03, 2008 5:43 am wrote:
I heartily agree. That site seems... like a ripoff. Any student that uses this site is just asking to be kicked out of school. Dan, can you delete this?


I didn't understand you. What delete ? Why delete?

Did I break some of compsci.ca rules?


@Zeroth, @Dan, if you don't understand purpose of www.freelancebalkan.com visit this link http://forum.freelancebalkan.com/viewforum.php?f=5

Author:  rizzix [ Thu Jul 03, 2008 6:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: freelancebalkan

To quote Zeroth,
Zeroth @ Thu Jul 03, 2008 5:43 am wrote:
Any student that uses this site is just asking to be kicked out of school.


Besides, that kind of cheating is against compsci.ca rules.

Author:  Dan [ Thu Jul 03, 2008 6:25 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

My problem is more with the outsourcing part then the potential for cheating.

As for deleting it does not realy break any rules and he is free to post it as long as it is not done in a spammy way.

@Dragan Personaly my issue with it is the idea of outsourcing programming work to other countrys and thus hurting the local programming industry and puting well trained and qaufied local programmers out of work for lower payed less educated programmers who will work for less.

I blive zeroth issue with it stems from the poteal for it to be used by computer science students as a means for paying peoleop to do there work. Outsourcing the home work so to say.

Author:  StealthArcher [ Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:freelancebalkan

Dan @ Thu Jul 03, 2008 5:25 pm wrote:


@Dragan Personaly my issue with it is the idea of outsourcing programming work to other countrys and thus hurting the local programming industry and puting well trained and qaufied local programmers out of work for lower payed less educated programmers who will work for less.


Then the local programmers should find a way to reduce their costs and charge less, we shouldn't have to 'protect' them by shutting outsourcing down.

Author:  DemonWasp [ Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:33 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

Stealth Archer, you have a point, but consider the typical (software) outsourcing story:

1. Company decides local talent is too expensive, outsources the work.
2. Work takes longer and costs more than anticipated.
3. Project arrives late, barely functional, and incomplete. The software is complete garbage. Nobody is happy with the outcome.
4. People get to use sub-standard software because someone got greedy.

While the free market can handle a lot of things, it doesn't always create quality products; that only happens if the people working on it care about the product enough to make it good. Local talent can't be cheaper, because if it was, they'd be cutting corners to work at the same level as the outsourced labour.

So really, it's not that we should protect local programmers, it's that we should encourage competent programming (and competent engineering, etc) so that we aren't left with half-assed products. This is to keep the software world "healthy", not to bolster the pocketbooks of local coders, IMO.

Author:  Tony [ Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:33 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

Local programmers shouldn't reduce cost or charge less, they should simply do the high-quality type of work that they have the skills for.

The problems arise when one expects a high wage for a low-skill job or when a high-skill job is outsourced to a low-skill worker.

Author:  StealthArcher [ Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:freelancebalkan

DemonWasp @ Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:33 pm wrote:
Stealth Archer, you have a point, but consider the typical (software) outsourcing story:

1. Company decides local talent is too expensive, outsources the work.
2. Work takes longer and costs more than anticipated.
3. Project arrives late, barely functional, and incomplete. The software is complete garbage. Nobody is happy with the outcome.
4. People get to use sub-standard software because someone got greedy.

While the free market can handle a lot of things, it doesn't always create quality products; that only happens if the people working on it care about the product enough to make it good. Local talent can't be cheaper, because if it was, they'd be cutting corners to work at the same level as the outsourced labour.

So really, it's not that we should protect local programmers, it's that we should encourage competent programming (and competent engineering, etc) so that we aren't left with half-assed products. This is to keep the software world "healthy", not to bolster the pocketbooks of local coders, IMO.


And yet you truly believe controlling the market through legislation produces this?

Author:  DemonWasp [ Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:20 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

It can, if the legislation is written with foresight. There's no reason it can't be, except that people are stupid, misinformed, and generally lousy at seeing the whole picture (myself included).

The people who make the laws are not necessarily in the best position to understand their ramifications, so you'll get poor laws if you can't guide the lawmakers in their work.

Author:  btiffin [ Fri Jul 04, 2008 4:42 am ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

Umm, I'm with Stealth Archer on this one. Don't assume non North American programmers are "low-skill". Problems arise from spec mis-interpretations more often than any lack of programming talent. IQ and higher education is evenly distributed across the planet (in the main).

The large IT centre that was built in India is now mainly a call-centre afaik. Just before a lot of large outsourcing was planned the US and Canadian governments piped up "Wait, you want to develop government contracted software in a foreign land ... we don't think so!" Large corporate clients followed suit. Too much security risk.

Not that it is not happening, just not on the scale that was planned by some big wigs.

Better to let "them" make outsourcing plans and then create a better-than-anywhere-else Canadian shop. Compete on the global stage and go get contracts producing software for China. Smile Do it. I'll apply for a job and gladly work for just about anyone here.

Cheers

Author:  DemonWasp [ Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:33 am ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

Hmmm. Perhaps my gripe is more against independent contracting where the company ends up with a crappy product that they're legally obligated to pay outrageous amounts for. I suppose I've heard of that both in outsourcing and locally, but more frequently in outsourcing.

Either way, software quality suffers when people try to do it cheap. Quality - Short Development Time - Price; choose exactly two. Too often the first goes unnoticed, with the emphasis on the other two. This sacrifices things like efficiency, security, good coding practices, maintainability, and so on for a short-term gain, and it's damaging both to the software industry as well as whoever the application is for.

Author:  Zeroth [ Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: freelancebalkan

The problem is not the outsource programmers, but the companies that employ them. I've seen and heard of contract work that comes back, in:
A) The wrong language(its almost always VB6, instead of C, C++, Perl, Lisp, or Python as requested)
B) Buggier than code written by a first year programmer
C) Takes longer than stated, and they always have glib excuses.

There have been a few small successes, but typically, the companies take the contract, they change things so their programmers don't realize its all wrong, and then ship it back without bugs. There are also significant cultural issues. One company thats actually succeeded with outsourcing, does all their testing in China(and main development in the US). When they started, they sent the software off, and the tests routines. They were asked by the lead tester, "What do you want the tests to say?"

To do outsourcing well, you need to deal with cultural issues, timeline expectations, communications issues, security issues, and ensure the company isn't just lying. This tends to create a large group of... facilitators just to ensure the "cheaper" work gets done right... and which ends up, with the cost of the facilitators and technology, to be more expensive than home-brewed programmers.

And yes, my issue is on the cheating part. Sites should encourage learning, not buying the answers. As well, I do have a particular dislike of outsource coders, since they typically undersell everyone on those code for hire sites, and screw up every single time. For awhile, I tried to do one of those code for hire sites... kept getting undersold by coders that would submit, again, VB6, instead of Python, or C as had been requested.

Author:  Dragan [ Fri Jul 04, 2008 5:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:freelancebalkan

Dan @ Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:25 am wrote:

@Dragan Personaly my issue with it is the idea of outsourcing programming work to other countrys and thus hurting the local programming industry and puting well trained and qaufied local programmers out of work for lower payed less educated programmers who will work for less.


Why do you think that only in your country programers are well trained and qaulified, and all other (in other countries like mine) are less educated?

Maybe we are cheaper but that is becouse standard in my country is on less level.

Zeroth wrote:

The problem is not the outsource programmers, but the companies that employ them. I've seen and heard of contract work that comes back, in
A) The wrong language(its almost always VB6, instead of C, C++, Perl, Lisp, or Python as requested)
B) Buggier than code written by a first year programmer
C) Takes longer than stated, and they always have glib excuses.


Do you think that only in your country programmers make the best programs. Every country have low-skill and high-skill programers. Any company who employ low-skill programmers, thay will do one job with tham and after this:
A) The wrong language(its almost always VB6, instead of C, C++, Perl, Lisp, or Python as requested)
B) Buggier than code written by a first year programmer
C) Takes longer than stated, and they always have glib excuses.

thay will be fired.

Zeroth wrote:

And yes, my issue is on the cheating part. Sites should encourage learning, not buying the answers.


You are miss point, we dont want to work someones homework, we try to find business partners.

Author:  silent1mezzo [ Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:37 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

Somehow I think this has gotten extremely out of hand.

Yes, other countries have poor and great programmers (Canada does too).

"Problems arise from spec mis-interpretations more often than any lack of programming talent. IQ and higher education is evenly distributed across the planet (in the main). "

This mis-interpretation often stems from language differences IMO.

Author:  Dan [ Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:freelancebalkan

Dragan @ 4th July 2008, 5:43 pm wrote:

Why do you think that only in your country programers are well trained and qaulified, and all other (in other countries like mine) are less educated?


I never side this nor ment to imply it so i feal no need to try and make an argument agiansted a straw man fallacy.


My problem with outsorcing besides the damge to the local industry is that alot of the outsorcing companys (the guys work is being outsorced to and then hire cheap programmers to do it) do not have very high standars in who they empoly. To keep costs down they run it like a call center and it is basicly a programming farm that takes as many low payed programmers that they can get so they can get the job done fast and cheap (much like in zeroth post about how you can only pick two, they only seem to care about the cheap and fast).

Now this does not nessarly apply to indviudal contracters who are not working for programming farms, but in this case why are you devaluing your own work and that of the indusrty by acpeting almost nothing for it? The problem is not that programmers in the 1st world are over payed the problem is that good programers in the 2nd and 3rd world are under payed and by playing in to this idea you only hurt your self and your own local indusrty.

The peoleop making the most money from outsorucing are not the programmers but the big companys and this is not good for programmers any where.

I also have issues agisnted this trend of contracting programmers with out ever meeting them face to face and only contacting them over the web and never acutaly seeing any real criedntals. This is not so much damging to the indusrty in terms of money but in terms of embarsment when the person doing the contracting gets screwed over due to bad comunication (from never aucatly meeting the client) or from dishonest contracters. Thess unskiled or dishonest web only contracters just make it harder for reptable skilled contracters to do honest business.

This is all option however so take it as you will.

Author:  rizzix [ Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: freelancebalkan

You actually did say it Dan. To quote:
Quote:
@Dragan Personaly my issue with it is the idea of outsourcing programming work to other countrys and thus hurting the local programming industry and puting well trained and qaufied local programmers out of work for lower payed less educated programmers who will work for less.


And Tony used the words:
Quote:
The problems arise when one expects a high wage for a low-skill job or when a high-skill job is outsourced to a low-skill worker.
It's only logical, that Dragan would take these negatively.

Both comments, IMO are extremely harsh and rude. Perhaps they could be rephrased differently. Wink

Author:  Dan [ Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: freelancebalkan

rizzix @ 4th July 2008, 10:29 pm wrote:
You actually did say it Dan. To quote:
Quote:
@Dragan Personaly my issue with it is the idea of outsourcing programming work to other countrys and thus hurting the local programming industry and puting well trained and qaufied local programmers out of work for lower payed less educated programmers who will work for less.


Notice that Dragan changed my point from outsorced progamming is of a lower skill (in terms of progamming farms) to all other countres them my own are of a lower skill. Althought this change may seem minor to some it is a clasic starw man and vastly changes my arugment to an easyly deftable one.


Edit: If it makes it any less darmatic and in the case of if Dragan's fealings realy where hurt, i am sorry if you or any one thought that i ment none canadain or none north amarica coders are of a lower skill, thats not what i ment to say at all and is not true at all. What i ment is that companys that only care about geting the producte out fast and cheap produce lower qaulity code and don't care who writes it as long as it is done so they on average hever lower education and skill and i blive this type of company to be common in the out sorcing market. Also i blive that no direct contact with the programmer and no insurcens of there skill or education lead the outsorcing world to be filled with lesser skilled programmers who use the distence and lessoned comuncation as a mask for there inablity, this is not the case for every outsorcing programmer obvesly but i feal (with admity no stats to back it up) that this is ramped in the outsorcuing industry (as well as localy sometimes too, just take the case of all the high school web devlpers there are out there with fancy looking sites claiming to be a devlopment company).

Edit2: Removed redundent statments.

Author:  Zeroth [ Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: freelancebalkan

Body language forms 80% of communication. Without meeting people in person, and as Dan said, disreputable companies trying to raise profits, they reflect poorly on countries like India and China.

And as I said, there are also distinct cultural differences. There are talented programmers in India and China. They, however, almost never work for an outsourcing company. Typically, in India, the very best work at Microsoft or Microsoft Research(There are only a few Microsoft Research Labs in the world, and India has one of them, because of the easy access to brilliant researchers.)

Google Outsourcing success stories, then google outsourcing failure|fail. Do some reading. Wink

Author:  Dan [ Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:43 am ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

I would also like to point out, some one what agisted my own arugment, that we probly here more about the failures then the sucess witch probly basies my option (combined with underminding the value of our work).

It would be intresting to try and find some independt stats on the subject.

Personaly i would like to know how the devlopment process can work corectly if you send the specfs off to get coded and do not have much feed back on the coding process. In my expercen it seems that even the most detialed and well layed out plans/specs need chaning and need to keep evoling threw out the coding process. So how would this be dealt with when there is a disconect between coders and the desiners such as the distance and comuncation bearies that come up in outsorcing? Also how is the documenation and mantaintblity of the code effected when there are langune bariaes between the desingers and coders (epstaly if using in code comments to genrated documenation). This is assuming a spec is sent to be coded and not just testing like in one of the posted examples.

Author:  Dragan [ Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: freelancebalkan

Dan @ Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:55 am wrote:
What i ment is that companys that only care about geting the producte out fast and cheap produce lower qaulity code


Why code need to be with low quality? Did you think that all cheap programmers in small countries make low quality code? It is cheap for your standard but for our it is big money. And companies rather wont to work with cheap programmers than expensive programmers with same quality. Why company need to pay expensive programmer when can pay some programmer in small country for less money (if they have same quality).

Dan wrote:

Personaly i would like to know how the devlopment process can work corectly if you send the specfs off to get coded and do not have much feed back on the coding process.


Did you work in some company as programmer? I did and I know how that process goes, if you wont I can explain.

Author:  Dan [ Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: freelancebalkan

Dragan @ 5th July 2008, 7:03 pm wrote:

Why code need to be with low quality?


Becues you can't have good qaulity, done fast and for cheap all at once. It's like having your cake and eating it two. I blive this point has been talked about in past posts in the topic.


Dragan @ 5th July 2008, 7:03 pm wrote:

Did you think that all cheap programmers in small countries make low quality code?


You are trying to draw me back in to the starw man you made, i alrleady commented on what i think.



Dragan @ 5th July 2008, 7:03 pm wrote:

Did you work in some company as programmer? I did and I know how that process goes, if you wont I can explain.


I have no idea what you mean here. I would love you to explain how the specs can keep being devloped and not stay static if the persons doing the desing of the spec and the persons doing the coding do not have contact if that is what you say you are going to explain. You can also explain how the documenation and maintaiblity is done too if you like.


P.S. i have worked for both companys, orginastions (goverment and non profit) as well as open source projects (current) but in all cases there was face to face contact with at least one client or some one repsestive of the client as well as contact with the head devlopers/person making the planing so admity i don't know how it would work with outsourcing witch is why i asked (not trying to make a point aginsted it in my last post).

Author:  PaulButler [ Sun Jul 06, 2008 8:52 am ]
Post subject:  RE:freelancebalkan

If the arguments against outsourcing (low quality work, missed deadlines, etc.) are true, and the costs of outsourcing outweighs the lower prices, people will stop outsourcing. If the arguments are wrong, people will keep outsourcing. Like it or not, it's a free market.

Author:  Dan [ Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:freelancebalkan

PaulButler @ 6th July 2008, 8:52 am wrote:
If the arguments against outsourcing (low quality work, missed deadlines, etc.) are true, and the costs of outsourcing outweighs the lower prices, people will stop outsourcing. If the arguments are wrong, people will keep outsourcing. Like it or not, it's a free market.


If the free market idology where true alot of things would be diffrent (like i would not be paying $100 for 2MB of data on my cell phone), but unfrontly if you have a monoply or enought companys in the industry also do it they can get away with pushing out lower qaulity items.

For example look at the outsorucing of call centers. I don't know any one know thinks calling teck support and geting some one who has low qaulity english comuncation skills is a good thing, yet tones of companys are moving there call centers to foren countrys.

If a company can gain more money cutting qaulity then they will lose in custmers from doing so then the free market idea does not hold up.


Also if we requier free trade argements with other countrs to buy pysical products with them with out a dutty why should not there be the same kind of tax of software and services prouced in other countrys and imported? Rampaed and unchecked golbalisation is not a postive thing. Our countrys workers will allwaqys lose since companys would just outsource to countrys that do not respect minuwages, humman rights or any kind of workers rights/protections. Some times it is better to have slight more epxesive software then lossing all we have work for in terms of works rights and beffites.

Author:  Dragan [ Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:freelancebalkan

Dan @ Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:36 am wrote:
Dragan @ 5th July 2008, 7:03 pm wrote:

Why code need to be with low quality?


Becues you can't have good qaulity, done fast and for cheap all at once.


You can't or you don't wont to understand, what is cheap for you that is expensive for me. We don't have same standard. Like we in Serbia and people in India, what is cheap for us that is expensive for them and they work for lower price, that don't mean that thay work with lower quality, that simply mean that thay have lower standard. I hope that you understand now if you don't ...

Dan wrote:

I would love you to explain how the specs can keep being devloped and not stay static if the persons doing the desing of the spec and the persons doing the coding do not have contact if that is what you say you are going to explain. You can also explain how the documenation and maintaiblity is done too if you like.


When we work for some company or person (we make usualy web sites), we get documentation what we need to do (which functionality site need to have) or we talk with client and he say what he wont. If we don't get design, we just leave smarty variables in html (I hope that you know what is smarty, and purpose of smarty). All progress is supervised by employer all the time. Whan we finish any part of project we put that on server and employer can see it. If we need some details, we communicate with skype. Misunderstanding is almost imposibile. I don't need to see employer to make code, I need to see documentation of project (what I need to do) to make code.

ps. when I say "we" I mean me and mine friends


PaulButler @ Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:52 pm wrote:
If the arguments against outsourcing (low quality work, missed deadlines, etc.) are true, and the costs of outsourcing outweighs the lower prices, people will stop outsourcing. If the arguments are wrong, people will keep outsourcing. Like it or not, it's a free market.


I agree with PaulButler.

Author:  Tony [ Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:freelancebalkan

Dragan @ Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:44 pm wrote:
If we need some details, we communicate with skype.

This is likely the key key point.

I think Dan is arguing against the sweatshop "farms", while Dragan is arguing in favour of international contract work. If so, I would agree with them both.

The problem with sweatshops is that they are set up in countries with lax laws and cut down costs at the expense of human rights. Well, at least from our western perspective. There isn't that much difference between making Nike shoes or chucking out Java code, in such a setting. If one is essentially forced to code, as an alternative to making shoes, the quality will be the bare minimum required to stay employed (note that in this case one is employed by the shop, not one for whom the project is being made).

Now, if instead the employment was on individual contract basis, with telecommuting (skype, IM, etc), then I'm all in favour of free market. If I decide to go travel the world, while still working remotely, I would not expect my rates to be altered as I cross various borders. In the same regard, if Dragan (and others like him) is able to provide quality work for a quality company, then he should be receiving a quality compensation, regardless of where he chooses (or is required by circumstances) to live.


: