Re: interesting

From: Terry Given (my_name_at_ieee.org)
Date: 03/15/05 

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:22:39 +1300

Clifford Heath wrote:
> John Larkin wrote:
>
>> ...CS or IT educations, which both limits their utility to hacking
>> C++ and makes them prime targets for foreign outsourcing.
>
>
> What an ignorant attitude. The reason that EE is being hit so
> much harder than software is that it's worked for 40 years to
> make products that don't need support (repair and training) and
> indeed most mass-market products aren't even possible to repair.
> When you haven't got (and don't need) a support industry, you
> lose the seeding ground for your product enterprises.

Pah. John's bang on wrt CS/IT, although its not just foreign outsourcing
thats the issue -there are ludicrous numbers of CS/IT parasites spewing
forth from universities, mostly because they pay the same fees as, say,
civil engineers, but are a hell of a lot cheaper to train, ergo are a
source of greater profitability for the universities, which invariably
have to meet economic goals. From an individuals perspective, I would
steer clear of this group, because there are more of them hence more
competition. The "law" of Supply & Demand suggests this will drive wages
down (hey, its part of the reason I chose power electronics as a
specialty. The explosions were the main reason though), as evinced by
the massive outsourcing of sw jobs from the US to countries like India.

wrt the non-repairability of electronics, that is IMO mostly concerned
with fucked up economic models. When the assembly staff are being paid a
few cents per hour to build a complex product, invariably in a country
with little or no worker protection (reminds me of the taiwanes pcb
plant I my boss took pictures of, staffed by barefoot Filipinos
breathing highly noxious fumes), its hardly surprising that replacement
is "cheaper" than paying a 1st-world tech to repair it - said tech being
paid tens of dollars per hour, within some sort of framework of worker
protection legislation.

>
> The same hasn't and won't happen with software, because support
> is always going to be needed. Some software can be outsourced,
> but there will always be smart local folk who can come up with
> a bright product idea and make money out of it without being
> immediately undercut by an Asian competitor. That's not to say
> that broken software can be "fixed" - look at Windows! - but that
> its failings are handled by better support, not by throwing it
> away and starting again with a new model.
>
> Clifford Heath.

Really? I would argue that "support is always going to be needed"
precisely because those writing the software are mostly talentless,
bungling fools. Almost all electronic products nowadays contain embedded
software, much of which *never* gets upgraded - usually because it was
well written and tested, by EEs. OTOH PC software is usually inflicted
on the hapless public the minute the GUI is looks vaguely useable - I
have seen several companies not even *consider* a testing phase for
software, instead releasing it ASAP, followed by huge amounts of code
revisions lasting years after the original project was "finished", and I
am sure that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Alas managers dont seem to grasp such subtleties as total cost of
ownership, or if they do appear to be blinded by the flashy graphics of
GUIs, coupled with the low pay rates inexperienced CS/IT grads command.
This ensures crap software prevails.

Cheers
Terry