My comments are embedded below.

"Dave Sheehy" wrote in message
...
Ted Byers ) wrote:

: "mg" wrote in message ...
:
:
: Ted Byers wrote:
:
: I expect to be signing, in the very near future, a contract to teach
: (several courses in programming and software engineering) in
Chandigarh.
:
: Aiding the dark side, are we?
: Huh?

This is undoubtedly referring to the offshoring of engineering jobs to
India. The inference is that you will be aiding this trend by training
Indian SW engineers.

Perhaps I am. But I don't really care. Everyone, regardless of where they
happen to live, has a right to the best education they can get any any field
of interest to them. If that means that Indian software engineers can out
compete their north american or european counterparts, then tough. I do not
believe, though, that there is a shortage of opportunity in IT. I have seen
many cases where companies and public institutions have been "cheated" by
charletans who claimed to be experts and who, judging from what they
actually delivered, were grossly incompetent. Team up a good marketting man
right here with a team of good software engineers, and you'll have a
thriving business because if you're doing it right, you'll find plenty of
work (in part reparing damage done by incompetent competitors).

I know full well that if your mindset is that you have to be an employee of
a large company, finding work in IT is insanely frustrating. The whole
industry is in a mess, and many key decision makers are proving to be
blithering idiots, leaping after one trend only to run head long into major
problems that had been ignored before makng the leap.

I, for one, will take work where I can find it.

: All I can hope is that you don't know enough to export anything
important.

: What are you talking about?

I interpret this statement as you "exporting" SW technology (knowledge)
to India. The expressed hope is that you won't be able to them anything
useful.

That is rather insulting, don't you think?

And it is foolish.

After all, once India reaches a standard of living comparable to our own,
they won't have a competitive advantage due to the cost of living. And it
is a huge market. Any software company looking to market its wares would be
wise to encourage international cooperation in order to better be able to
sell TO India. BTW: some of my software has already been exported (a
product used to evaluate environmental risk, and currently in use by every
organization that currently has a Candu reactor): this is a product, the
only one of its kind so far (to my knowledge - things may have changed since
I finished it), developed here and sold there. Keep the folk there ignorant
and such sales won't be possible. Products can not be sold to people who
don't know they need the product and who don't have the means to buy it
anyway.

When it gets right down to it, I do not see the world in racial or national
bounderies. There are only people, and these have needs and aspirations to
be considered. If there is a chap on the other side of the planet who needs
education I can provide, and there is a way I can earn a living by providing
it, then I will do so. As an educator, who happens to have plenty of
experience in software engineering (as well as environmental science), I
have a duty to do so regardless of whether or not he will end up competing
with a neighbor down the street, round the block, or half way around the
world. Let the work go to the best egineer available regardless of
accidents of birth such as gender, race or place of birth. And as an
educator, I will make sure that those students who pass my courses are among
the best on the planet, and I have the education and experience required to
do so.

Dave, if your interpretation of what mg wrote is correct, then I'd suggest
that such protectionist BS be rebuked wherever it rears its ugly head (even
if it is OT here :-). And, I'd say I would have rather heard about orchids
likely to be available there, orchid societies, nurseries, etc. in
Chandigarh, and if mg (whoever that is) didn't have any information relevant
to my query then he or she should have kept silent.

Cheers,

Ted

PS: such protectionist BS gets me a little angry, so I think I'll go grab a
coffee and try to calm down.