RE: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
I'm assisting with an Actionscript outsourcing project right now with some Flash game coders in Mumbai, so far so good, though they are a little behind in skills - but would be interested to learn any cultural things people have experienced with Flash developers in India. Jason Merrill Bank of America GTO and Risk LLD Solutions Design Development eTools Multimedia Bank of America Flash Platform Developer Community Are you a Bank of America associate interested in innovative learning ideas and technologies? Check out our internal GTO Innovative Learning Blog subscribe. ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
i worked at The Online Studio where a lot of their actionscript gets outsourced to india and like you said, it's a little bit behind but overall very good AS2 code On 28 Mar 2008, at 15:03, Merrill, Jason wrote: I'm assisting with an Actionscript outsourcing project right now with some Flash game coders in Mumbai, so far so good, though they are a little behind in skills - but would be interested to learn any cultural things people have experienced with Flash developers in India. Jason Merrill Bank of America GTO and Risk LLD Solutions Design Development eTools Multimedia Bank of America Flash Platform Developer Community Are you a Bank of America associate interested in innovative learning ideas and technologies? Check out our internal GTO Innovative Learning Blog subscribe. ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
Jason Merrill wrote: I'm assisting with an Actionscript outsourcing project right now with some Flash game coders in Mumbai, so far so good, though they are a little behind in skills - but would be interested to learn any cultural things people have experienced with Flash developers in India. A few things I have noticed: People in other cultures use software differently, and may have different priorities. For example, the new version of Director, just released, was done by a crack team in India. They did a bang-up job coming up to speed on a complex code base, fixed a lot of bugs, added Unicode support, and lots of other neat stuff. However, the new text-rendering engine they wrote is taking a lot of heat, and the message window, one of a developer's best friends, is now virtually unusable. It's not because they are inferior programmers--they just didn't completely understand how Western developers use the tool. I had a similar experience when I moved to Beijing in 1988 to manage a team of Chinese programmers. They had developed a nice piece of vertical-market software, and they wanted to market it in the West. They were good programmers, and hard-working, but their concept of a user interface was radically different from the West's. India is relatively new to the programming world. There was a major political shift 10-15 years ago that allowed India to compete on the world tech market, and they have done so with remarkable success. But, you don't have the silverback programmers there--the ones who wrote a 3D engine 15 years ago in C, or even assembler. Think back to perhaps 1985, 1990 in America. That's their accumulated experience level. Expect Indians to be very polite, even deferential. You'll never get flamed by an Indian--courtesy is too much a part of their culture. But don't even try to understand Indian office politics or professional relations. Their culture developed for millennia without significant influence from the West (the same could be said about Western culture, in reverse, of course). So, expect to be able to direct them on _what_ needs to be done, but don't expect to have a say in _how_ they do it. In America, you can expect a student to get a decent education, even at a small community college. They will work with modern equipment and modern software, and be taught modern, if not cutting-edge, techniques. In India, you find that environment only at the better colleges. Smaller, provincial colleges are still teaching Turbo Pascal on DOS, using 80286 machines. As a result, the best and brightest are a match for their peers anywhere in the world--they're as smart as anybody, and some of the top technical schools in India rival MIT or Cal Tech. But, once you get out of that tier of programmers, there is a sharp drop-off in skill levels. The Microsofts, Adobes, and IBMs of the world snap up that top tier of programmers. For the rest of us, hiring a team of Indian programmers is hit and miss--you could get a decent team, or you could end up with a hodge-podge of code that has to be scrapped and done over from scratch. Part of that appears to be the result of high turnover, or perhaps rapid advancement. I would find a part of my project was going well, then all of a sudden it would change drastically--different coding style, schedule slippage, and the like--and I would find that a new programmer, even a novice, had been assigned to that task. I hope this doesn't come across as overly critical. It's not meant to be. I've had some very good experiences with Indian teams, and some not so good experiences. At the end of the day, Indians are, well, people. Outside of cultural issues, there is no significant difference between a Gunjeet Parma and a Sharon Jones. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
Wow, thanks Kerry, that's great information. The part I found especially useful was, So, expect to be able to direct them on _what_ needs to be done, but don't expect to have a say in _how_ they do it. - We have encouraged them to write the project in AS3, but they are not comfortable with it yet, so I didn't want to push it on them - would rather have a well-coded AS2 project than a poorly coded AS3 project anyday. Jason Merrill Bank of America GTO and Risk LLD Solutions Design Development eTools Multimedia Bank of America Flash Platform Developer Community Are you a Bank of America associate interested in innovative learning ideas and technologies? Check out our internal GTO Innovative Learning Blog subscribe. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kerry Thompson Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 12:21 PM To: 'Flash Coders List' Subject: RE: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3) Jason Merrill wrote: I'm assisting with an Actionscript outsourcing project right now with some Flash game coders in Mumbai, so far so good, though they are a little behind in skills - but would be interested to learn any cultural things people have experienced with Flash developers in India. A few things I have noticed: People in other cultures use software differently, and may have different priorities. For example, the new version of Director, just released, was done by a crack team in India. They did a bang-up job coming up to speed on a complex code base, fixed a lot of bugs, added Unicode support, and lots of other neat stuff. However, the new text-rendering engine they wrote is taking a lot of heat, and the message window, one of a developer's best friends, is now virtually unusable. It's not because they are inferior programmers--they just didn't completely understand how Western developers use the tool. I had a similar experience when I moved to Beijing in 1988 to manage a team of Chinese programmers. They had developed a nice piece of vertical-market software, and they wanted to market it in the West. They were good programmers, and hard-working, but their concept of a user interface was radically different from the West's. India is relatively new to the programming world. There was a major political shift 10-15 years ago that allowed India to compete on the world tech market, and they have done so with remarkable success. But, you don't have the silverback programmers there--the ones who wrote a 3D engine 15 years ago in C, or even assembler. Think back to perhaps 1985, 1990 in America. That's their accumulated experience level. Expect Indians to be very polite, even deferential. You'll never get flamed by an Indian--courtesy is too much a part of their culture. But don't even try to understand Indian office politics or professional relations. Their culture developed for millennia without significant influence from the West (the same could be said about Western culture, in reverse, of course). So, expect to be able to direct them on _what_ needs to be done, but don't expect to have a say in _how_ they do it. In America, you can expect a student to get a decent education, even at a small community college. They will work with modern equipment and modern software, and be taught modern, if not cutting-edge, techniques. In India, you find that environment only at the better colleges. Smaller, provincial colleges are still teaching Turbo Pascal on DOS, using 80286 machines. As a result, the best and brightest are a match for their peers anywhere in the world--they're as smart as anybody, and some of the top technical schools in India rival MIT or Cal Tech. But, once you get out of that tier of programmers, there is a sharp drop-off in skill levels. The Microsofts, Adobes, and IBMs of the world snap up that top tier of programmers. For the rest of us, hiring a team of Indian programmers is hit and miss--you could get a decent team, or you could end up with a hodge-podge of code that has to be scrapped and done over from scratch. Part of that appears to be the result of high turnover, or perhaps rapid advancement. I would find a part of my project was going well, then all of a sudden it would change drastically--different coding style, schedule slippage, and the like--and I would find that a new programmer, even a novice, had been assigned to that task. I hope this doesn't come across as overly critical. It's not meant to be. I've had some very good experiences with Indian teams, and some not so good experiences. At the end of the day, Indians are, well, people. Outside of cultural issues, there is no significant difference between a Gunjeet Parma and a Sharon Jones. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
Laurent wrote: sick. If you want to know for how little money projects are proposed and how fast programmer people on earth can work for go there: http://www.getacoder.com I found the same thing when I registered with guru.com. There are hundreds of jobs with a budget of $500 or less, and precious few worth bidding on. All my work comes from contacts--current and former clients, colleagues, and the like. There is a downside to outsourcing, though. I've worked on two major projects, one for Disney and one for Sesame Street, that were initially outsourced overseas. Both projects were eventually deemed substandard, and completely re-written in-house. I'm not saying the programmers overseas are substandard--I've worked with some fine Chinese and Indian programmers (even some good Europeans ;-) There are so many problems with time differences, cultural differences, expectations, and a host of other issues that it often costs more to send something overseas. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
And that's why I took a steady. I contracted for about 6 years. Got a bit burnt out on people wanting something for nothing. Oh, and the we'll give you a project and see how well you do. Then we'll discus payment'... look at my @[EMAIL PROTECTED]@ portfolio you piece of [EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED] Also the 'my neighbors son said he could build this for $200 in half the time'. I think the best was when I quoted a flash form project and the company thought it was too much so they outsourced it. Needlesss to say that when they got the final product and tried to implement it into their existing application it wasn't compatible and very buggy. Guess you get what you pay for ;) B. On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 9:45 AM, Kerry Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Laurent wrote: sick. If you want to know for how little money projects are proposed and how fast programmer people on earth can work for go there: http://www.getacoder.com I found the same thing when I registered with guru.com. There are hundreds of jobs with a budget of $500 or less, and precious few worth bidding on. All my work comes from contacts--current and former clients, colleagues, and the like. There is a downside to outsourcing, though. I've worked on two major projects, one for Disney and one for Sesame Street, that were initially outsourced overseas. Both projects were eventually deemed substandard, and completely re-written in-house. I'm not saying the programmers overseas are substandard--I've worked with some fine Chinese and Indian programmers (even some good Europeans ;-) There are so many problems with time differences, cultural differences, expectations, and a host of other issues that it often costs more to send something overseas. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
My sentiments exactly.. it's frustrating...thats why I became full time in NY. Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:05:38 -0700 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3) And that's why I took a steady. I contracted for about 6 years. Got a bit burnt out on people wanting something for nothing. Oh, and the we'll give you a project and see how well you do. Then we'll discus payment'... look at my @[EMAIL PROTECTED]@ portfolio you piece of [EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED] Also the 'my neighbors son said he could build this for $200 in half the time'. I think the best was when I quoted a flash form project and the company thought it was too much so they outsourced it. Needlesss to say that when they got the final product and tried to implement it into their existing application it wasn't compatible and very buggy. Guess you get what you pay for ;) B. On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 9:45 AM, Kerry Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Laurent wrote: sick. If you want to know for how little money projects are proposed and how fast programmer people on earth can work for go there: http://www.getacoder.com I found the same thing when I registered with guru.com. There are hundreds of jobs with a budget of $500 or less, and precious few worth bidding on. All my work comes from contacts--current and former clients, colleagues, and the like. There is a downside to outsourcing, though. I've worked on two major projects, one for Disney and one for Sesame Street, that were initially outsourced overseas. Both projects were eventually deemed substandard, and completely re-written in-house. I'm not saying the programmers overseas are substandard--I've worked with some fine Chinese and Indian programmers (even some good Europeans ;-) There are so many problems with time differences, cultural differences, expectations, and a host of other issues that it often costs more to send something overseas. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders _ Watch “Cause Effect,” a show about real people making a real difference. Learn more. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_watchcause___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
it's bad enough to try to understand someone elses code when you speak the same language - it must be damn near impossible if everything's in chinese On 27 Mar 2008, at 16:45, Kerry Thompson wrote: Laurent wrote: sick. If you want to know for how little money projects are proposed and how fast programmer people on earth can work for go there: http://www.getacoder.com I found the same thing when I registered with guru.com. There are hundreds of jobs with a budget of $500 or less, and precious few worth bidding on. All my work comes from contacts--current and former clients, colleagues, and the like. There is a downside to outsourcing, though. I've worked on two major projects, one for Disney and one for Sesame Street, that were initially outsourced overseas. Both projects were eventually deemed substandard, and completely re-written in-house. I'm not saying the programmers overseas are substandard--I've worked with some fine Chinese and Indian programmers (even some good Europeans ;-) There are so many problems with time differences, cultural differences, expectations, and a host of other issues that it often costs more to send something overseas. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 4:34 PM, Allandt Bik-Elliott (Receptacle) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: it's bad enough to try to understand someone elses code when you speak the same language - it must be damn near impossible if everything's in chinese I've had to deal with that when working with an Italian coders actionscript. The naming is what kills you, because unless you speak the language you cant guess at what possible action a particular function has or what a particular variable pertains to, and you have to figure it out the long way, by combing through the code and locating them all. At a glance, there's now way to know that spostiPannelli means movePanels ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
Re: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
Yes, there are caveats with outsourcing, but the problems are often on the buyer end. If you learn how to specifiy and run your outsourcing projects you can do it successfuly. Don't hire someone that doesn't speak english or has any experience with projects abroad. I am running multiple indie game projects, all funded out of my own pocket, and they involve´more than 10 people in different countries. Their services range from 2D graphics, 3D modeling, programming and copywriting. In my opinion outsourcing is the future. I don't see a reason to hire anyone from Europe, unless they offer below-european-standard-rates of course. I do contract americans, because of the great USD. Regards Elia On 27 Mar 2008, at 16:45, Kerry Thompson wrote: Laurent wrote: sick. If you want to know for how little money projects are proposed and how fast programmer people on earth can work for go there: http://www.getacoder.com I found the same thing when I registered with guru.com. There are hundreds of jobs with a budget of $500 or less, and precious few worth bidding on. All my work comes from contacts--current and former clients, colleagues, and the like. There is a downside to outsourcing, though. I've worked on two major projects, one for Disney and one for Sesame Street, that were initially outsourced overseas. Both projects were eventually deemed substandard, and completely re-written in-house. I'm not saying the programmers overseas are substandard--I've worked with some fine Chinese and Indian programmers (even some good Europeans ;-) There are so many problems with time differences, cultural differences, expectations, and a host of other issues that it often costs more to send something overseas. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
RE: [Flashcoders] Outsourcing (was: Tweening Engines for AS3)
Allandt Bik-Elliott wrote: it's bad enough to try to understand someone elses code when you speak the same language - it must be damn near impossible if everything's in Chinese Well, as it happens, I speak Chinese--I used to live in Beijing. But communication isn't the issue. It's time zones, cultural differences, program behavior expectations, code structure expectations, and the like. You have that same issue, often, dealing with programmers in India--even really good programmers. I must admit, though, that language is an issue with non-English speakers. Programming languages are geared towards English speakers--all the keywords, built-in classes, and the like are English. With the Chinese programmers, who were very bright, but didn't speak English, I'd see a lot of variable or function names like x, xx, xx1, xz1, and the like. They are just as meaningful to a Chinese speaker as spritePos or detectCollision. And don't get me started on code commenting. Cordially, Kerry Thompson ___ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
