I see, acknowledge, and respect the intensity of your feelings here.
I'm taking my basic theme in this note from Bob's observation that
economics runs on the difference between cost and value.
Historically the relative richness of countries has often been based in
part from the difference between the cost of something in one place versus
the value in another. Whether that something is gold, oil, manual labor, or
software development doesn't matter.
It's not a good thing that shoes can be made more cheaply in Jakarta ...
unless you're the person in Jakarta who would be doing something even worse
were it not for the shoe factory. People wouldn't work there if it wasn't
better for them. (Slavery and child labor off the table for purposes of
simplification.)
Time was when shoes from Jakarta or cars from Japan weren't as good as
those made "here", so that some people who valued that kind of quality
bought the more expensive domestic products. Then Jakarta and Japan figured
out how to bring up the quality level. And the cycle continues.
A person, a company, or a country thrives based on its ability to provide
/something/ desirable at a favorable price. Countries or individuals with
no resources of interest, or no skills of interest, are in big trouble. And
individuals in countries with no resources of interest are also in big
trouble, to a degree independent of their own individual skills.
These aren't easy problems to solve, and I don't claim to know how to solve
them. What I know how to do, a little bit at least, is to help individuals
raise their skills, and to help organizations improve their ability to
bring value to the people they serve.
That may not be enough. But it's what I know how to do, so I do it.
Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
One test is worth a thousand expert opinions.
-- Bill Nye (The Science Guy)
On Tuesday, November 9, 2004, at 5:08:58 PM, Luiz Esmiralha wrote:
> My feeling is that you want to program computers, but don't want to
> produce shoes in a flooded factory, like they do in Jakarta for Nike!
> Well, if you want keep computer programming, take the damn shoe
> factory as well! Don't complain about the "American Programmer making
> less than 40K", as it makes me sick... Take a look at the world around
> you. 40K is a hell lot of money for the rest of the world.
End quotation from Luiz Esmiralha, on Tuesday, November 9, 2004, at 5:08:58 PM
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