4 ms·

IMHO the big cultural difference between the sub continent and the US is an emphasis on a particular notion of being “practical” over what I would call a partic

IMHO the big cultural difference between the sub continent and the US is an emphasis on a particular notion of being “practical” over what I would call a particular notion of being “smart.” I assume you are familiar with the particular notion of being smart. You are quick to think of solutions, the solutions are supposed to be novel, you have particular cultural knowledge, detailed opinions and a nerd sense of humor. In contrast the practical person will put no emphasis on a novel way of doing things. As long as the solution works, you use it. So in the US people may be excited by Haskell or whatever but in the sub continent they’re still using JAVA or PHP because it works. This is a bit frustrating because of the emphasis on specs and features that are implemented exactly as written. I also think the latter has to do with the distance and difficulty communicating. But the source of pride (practicality) is part of the cultural difference. Needless to say none of this is true of everyone and all people are equally smart and capable (except Phil: I know about you Phil).

usaphp 8y ago
> they’re still using JAVA or PHP because it works. Or probably because that’s what western counties pay for
- MichaelMoser123 8y ago
  every contractor does what he gets payed for, hat's not something tied to any specific place or culture. It might make sense to look at the difference in culture between outsourcing shops and places where they do the whole project in house - rather than to do broad generalizations. I guess any comparison depends on what you are looking for: when comparing software development culture I would ask about the work environment; are workers likely to help each other out or are they more likely to opt for cut-throat competition between peers? Are people encouraged and willing to share knowledge, or is that something unusual? But I suspect that's not the way that these questions are approached; these are definitely not traits that we are picked out for during job interviews.
abhinai 8y ago
I am not sure if Java is any more practical than say Node.js or Python.
- delinka 8y ago
  I think it's more that existing projects are in Java, so I have experience in Java, Java works, so why learn something else? Just start the next project in Java and it'll just work.
  - abhinai 8y ago
    That would imply that the world moved from Java to Node.js / Go / Python just because they are cool new technologies.
    - neeleshs 8y ago
      But did the world really move from Java to Node/Python?
      - kkarakk 8y ago
        2 years ago i'd say no but increasingly every new concept/tech stack i encounter has npm embedded in it to access a js library. same with python being used for automation/low level scripting. unless you set out with the mindset of NO NODE/NO PYTHON, it tends to worm it's way into the project coz someone on the team thought it was convenient
        neeleshs 8y ago
        Npm is prevalent in client side for sure, many non trivial ui apps use react/redux or similar and use npm for package mgmt. On the server side, it's a different story. Java still is the go-to language in a lot of organizations. Python for automation, machine learning, and provisioning, yes, I agree. These areas were never Java to begin with. This may change,though, what with Oracle's license changes.
    - 8y ago
gregmac 8y ago
How does this relate to maintenance? Whether code is practical or not is not a black and white issue, and a solution that "works" today - meets all specs, generally bug-free - doesn't mean it's maintainable. In fact, most of the code I've dealt with from people who basically only value the metric of "does it work?" completely fails at being maintainable. What I mean by this is as soon as you start trying to add/change features, you quicky run into bad design and have rewrite huge chunks to get the new stuff to fit, end up playing whack-a-mole with endless bugs, or both. Sometimes you can hack on a fix with duct tape, but that only delays an even bigger rewrite or more bugs later. I've run into this with mostly "job shop" places, both in North America and offshore, so perhaps the problem is the nature of that business more than the culture, but the mentality seems to align with your description of practicality.
- startupdiscuss 8y ago
  There is also another issue with “just works” and meeting specs: specs are almost universally under constrained. I might describe an admin interface in terms of what it controls but implicitly I want large choice sets to have search functionality and dates to have calendars and so on. A large choice set implemented as a massive drop down technically works but I don’t have to explain why it’s just wrong. The “practical” programmer may say hey it works and let’s move on. The “clever” programmer wants to impress with a new widget that is intuitive to use. In this particular case (interface design) I’d prefer the clever coder over the practical one.
  - waholleyiv 8y ago
    What you're describing is about end-user empathy than being "practical" or "clever".
nonamechicken 8y ago
Majority of us in India would also want to work on the latest and fancy tech. But unfortunately, most of us who work in the IT consultancy companies don't have that luxury. Most of the outsourced work are brain dead maintenance projects that are several years old.

usaphp 8y ago

> they’re still using JAVA or PHP because it works. Or probably because that’s what western counties pay for

MichaelMoser123 8y ago
every contractor does what he gets payed for, hat's not something tied to any specific place or culture. It might make sense to look at the difference in culture between outsourcing shops and places where they do the whole project in house - rather than to do broad generalizations. I guess any comparison depends on what you are looking for: when comparing software development culture I would ask about the work environment; are workers likely to help each other out or are they more likely to opt for cut-throat competition between peers? Are people encouraged and willing to share knowledge, or is that something unusual? But I suspect that's not the way that these questions are approached; these are definitely not traits that we are picked out for during job interviews.

abhinai 8y ago

I am not sure if Java is any more practical than say Node.js or Python.

delinka 8y ago
I think it's more that existing projects are in Java, so I have experience in Java, Java works, so why learn something else? Just start the next project in Java and it'll just work.
- abhinai 8y ago
  That would imply that the world moved from Java to Node.js / Go / Python just because they are cool new technologies.
  - neeleshs 8y ago
    But did the world really move from Java to Node/Python?
    - kkarakk 8y ago
      2 years ago i'd say no but increasingly every new concept/tech stack i encounter has npm embedded in it to access a js library. same with python being used for automation/low level scripting. unless you set out with the mindset of NO NODE/NO PYTHON, it tends to worm it's way into the project coz someone on the team thought it was convenient
      - neeleshs 8y ago
        Npm is prevalent in client side for sure, many non trivial ui apps use react/redux or similar and use npm for package mgmt. On the server side, it's a different story. Java still is the go-to language in a lot of organizations. Python for automation, machine learning, and provisioning, yes, I agree. These areas were never Java to begin with. This may change,though, what with Oracle's license changes.
  - 8y ago

gregmac 8y ago

How does this relate to maintenance? Whether code is practical or not is not a black and white issue, and a solution that "works" today - meets all specs, generally bug-free - doesn't mean it's maintainable. In fact, most of the code I've dealt with from people who basically only value the metric of "does it work?" completely fails at being maintainable. What I mean by this is as soon as you start trying to add/change features, you quicky run into bad design and have rewrite huge chunks to get the new stuff to fit, end up playing whack-a-mole with endless bugs, or both. Sometimes you can hack on a fix with duct tape, but that only delays an even bigger rewrite or more bugs later. I've run into this with mostly "job shop" places, both in North America and offshore, so perhaps the problem is the nature of that business more than the culture, but the mentality seems to align with your description of practicality.

startupdiscuss 8y ago
There is also another issue with “just works” and meeting specs: specs are almost universally under constrained. I might describe an admin interface in terms of what it controls but implicitly I want large choice sets to have search functionality and dates to have calendars and so on. A large choice set implemented as a massive drop down technically works but I don’t have to explain why it’s just wrong. The “practical” programmer may say hey it works and let’s move on. The “clever” programmer wants to impress with a new widget that is intuitive to use. In this particular case (interface design) I’d prefer the clever coder over the practical one.
- waholleyiv 8y ago
  What you're describing is about end-user empathy than being "practical" or "clever".

nonamechicken 8y ago

Majority of us in India would also want to work on the latest and fancy tech. But unfortunately, most of us who work in the IT consultancy companies don't have that luxury. Most of the outsourced work are brain dead maintenance projects that are several years old.