[thelist] Design/Development Goes Third World?

<tip type="JScript turned off" author="Ben Henick">
Working on some DHTML, and want to see what it looks like in IE with
JavaScript turned off?  Keep a version 3 browser around and spool it
up, as it beats the hell out of ploughing through your security
settings to turn off JavaScript - besides which you can also see the
degradation on local files.  And for HTML and normal document
properties, NN3 behaves almost largely like IE4...
</tip>

Well, I think I'll contribute here.  First work conditions, then the
"Third World Threat."

Unionization would IMO be a disaster for sw/hw/web community... it
would make the soup of politics in which we already live that much
thicker, and give those in the contract/temp world yet another
king-of-the-hill who can mess with their earnings potential.

After having finally settled into a market where I can network with
some hope of success, I've noticed something:

Too many of us too busy slaving away at today's code, to form effective
partnerships that stand a chance of making money.  In case you hadn't
noticed, the big companies put their notional "organization man" into
middle management, ensuring that "team fit" is defined by one's ability
to handle coolly (read: silently) that avalanche of horse apples that's
rolling downhill.  Creativity?  Insistence on solid process and
architecture?  Hah!  Time-to-market is more like it.  The reason there
are so many BAD sites out there is because clients and their
carpetbagging vendors like it that way.  There is a huge dimension of
charisma that no-one's bothering to consider...

Let's look at the typical tech worker:  smart and motivated.  Even
Second- and Third-World nations have lots of people who would be
considered middle- or high-class by US standards (with the *possible*
exception of Russia and FSU nations due east).  I don't know enough
about India to speak for its spot in the economic strata of the planet,
but there's plenty of evidence that'll do it for me.

The point is that there's capital to be had, and...

The cream always rises to the top.

For all its ills and evils, the US is at the top of the top, along with
a few other nations.

I think it's stupid for the US Congress to refuse increase in the
number of visas available for foreign workers, because they will
continue to come here every chance they get, in the process
contributing to the States' own GDP and standard of living.

Now, here are things to consider...

Outside of the Western Europe and the English-speaking world, which
countries have civic values and infrastructure sufficent for the
building of a strong technical workforce?  China, India, Indonesia, and
the former Soviet satellite states (and so forth) certainly have strong
technical elites, but to what extent can they REALLY compete
effectively with their First World counterparts in the international
marketplace?

It takes a village to raise a child (or so the saying goes) but I
figure there're a lot of villages out there still trying to get the
fundamentals down.  How easy is it to feel good about life when you
can't count on running water and reliable electricity to be within easy
reach (for example)?  Hell, having to eschew tap water for purposes of
drinking is distressing enough to me.  I'm consititutionally incapable
of considering the perspective of families (and how many billions are
there, now) for whom water for washing and drinking requires a hefty
hike to a communal well.

Communication is also a big ingredient.  What are the numbers on
telephone penetration in the Second and Third World nations?  There's
something to think about.

Does the thought of a Web sweatshop on the Mumbai waterfront
(notionally) bug me?

A little bit...  but when everything is said and done, the First World
is still holding the best hand, for now at least.

Let them compete.  It'll improve the entire marketplace, as competition
always does.  And if that sounds too libertarian for you... accept my
apologies.



=====
Ben Henick              |  "In the long run, men hit only
Web Author At-Large     |  what they aim at.  Therefore,
www.io.com/persist1/    |  though they should fail
persist1@io.com         |  immediately, they had better aim
persist1_pdx@yahoo.com  |  high."  --Henry David Thoreau

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