Tibor Mocsar wrote:
>I suppose your major is not economics ;-)
Was it that bad (lets see, I make around 1900 SEK (8 SEK = 1 USD) it costs
between 3000-5000 SEK for a small appartment here (unless you get really
lucky and find one for less) and someone in the former east block earns
between 300 SEK (Romania) and 600 SEK (baltic states) a month)? No, my
major is computers (or actually programming). I did took a class in economy
a few years back (got an equvalent to an A) but that was very basic. My
sister took more classes and my father works as an economic.
But of course one can live cheaply here as well. One of the most
influential people in computers today here in Sweden lives in a very small
appartment and doesn't eat or dress like he "should" if one regards the
ammount of money he's "worth".
>>Most shareware comes from that part of the world.
>
>You mean _more_ shareware comes from there (than before), don't you?
That as well (for obvious reasons only 20-30% of my older software came
from the "east block"). But when I find something (usefull) that's
Shareware it's in more then 90% of the cases from "east". Older shareware
came from the "west" but today almost all of it come from the "east".
>Otherwise I must have missed something. And certainly Michael's remark
>was meant ironically (that's why the smiley). No programmer in Eastern
>Europe could survive by selling shareware for DOS or any other OS. This
>has a simple reason: in most of these countries buying a PC for private
>use still means a meaningful cut in the household's budget. And
>shareware is first of all for private use at home. So simply there is no
>market for it, unfortunatelly.
Of course noone can live on it, perhaps making a little extra. But many
programs I've seen/used are from that part of the world (can't remember
seeing one single shareware program from the US that I could even imagine
paying for - except DOOM that is <G>).
>>I assume that's one
>>reason, but also because of theheact that not everyone there got new jobs
>>when market economy came.
>
>In fact, lots of people lost their job.
Yes, and never got new ones (*everyone* was employed before the change).
>>"Eastern" programmers are in general very good at programming. To bad not
>>all that is used, atleast very few make programs for Windows that's good :)
>
>They are good because most of them had _no_ PC and had to learn much
>more mathematics instead. So an algorithmus had to be perfect when they
>got the chance to take a seat in front of a terminal.
Good point. Something more people should think about when creating
programs. If 50% more time is spent then perhaps 10% can be saved when the
program is used? These days programmers (or atleats does who want the
programs) don't care about that and go out and buy a new computer instead.
>Since there is
>only a neglectable ( but growing) home market most of these programmers
>still work for the industry or gov. agencies which use different systems
>(MVS, VMS, UNIX, AS/400 etc ), hardly comparable with the DOS/Windows
>systems at home.
Yes of course they use others (probably many are not like the once we are
used to either), but I have a few programs from the former Soviet Union
(from 87-89 I think) that are very good. (Mostly small games, some hold a
high class even today and I've seen people play them on several occasions
on other places as well.)
>Most of the important products of these software
>engineers were not the tipical office applications like wordprocessor
>etc., but highly specialized software for optical recognition, CAD/CAM,
>software for architecture or embedded applications for medical diagnose.
Yeah, I have not seen any office programs comming from that part of the world.
Perhaps this wasn't a priority to learn?
>I'm afraid, the level of Eastern European programers could be lower in
>future. The best software engineers are in the US already (braindrain)
Ah, but do they make the best software? That's the key question here.
>and the education at home is not the same like before. ( I just read
>this: faculty of computer sciences at the Technical University in
>Budapest doesn't hold entry examination anymore )
I think that would be good to have on more places. In my class we are very
diffrent in skill (I'm a little bit behind the top of the class but still
miles away from the bottom). Could be usefull for other courses/classes as
well. I think there are tests before you start an education in other
countries. (ex. Norway IIRC).
>My time has come ! ;-)
"My time in the light is short..." and I bet noone here can guess from
where I got that one.
//Bernie
http://hem1.passagen.se/bernie/ DOS programs, Star Wars ...
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