4 ms·

>consultants Who? I see people constantly talking about those "consultants", yet what they are? Just dev that has single-person company?

jcelerier 3y ago
there's a ton of consulting companies which are humonguous. Companies like Accenture with 780000 employees, Tata Consultancy with 488000 consultants, CapGemini with 300k-ish... it's one of the largest businesses in the world
- anthk 3y ago
  These write big turds. If they can't afford to write a simple cross-platform QT5 based software for actual computing (AKA desktops except for niche usage on art with iPad for drawings and some audio production), they are doomed. Period.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Just to reword the sibling; none of those consultants ever created a best-selling piece of software. They are not the people that create the software you install on your machine. That task is usually done by a lone developer at some random place.
  - xNeil 3y ago
    I mean, I don't think that's exactly a fair comparison. These companies are focused a lot (and I mean a lot) more on enterprise software than your regular desktop software. I'm talking about Banking Systems, Automation Platforms, Government Software, stuff that has no use outside the corporate world. And they do genuinely do good work in these areas. Sure, they're not pioneers or doing some groundbreaking research, but they do their job and they do their job well (of course there are exceptions - but these aren't 100 billion dollar companies for nothing).
    - mike_hock 3y ago
      > but these aren't 100 billion dollar companies for nothing Producing the best possible software doesn't produce the highest possible revenue. You'd want to produce something that works well enough that it's viable for the customer to keep hiring your consultants, but also makes it necessary to continuously keep hiring them. So that translates to producing the worst possible software that barely works. So no, they're not $100B companies for nothing. They know exactly how to walk that line.
    - marcosdumay 3y ago
      > And they do genuinely do good work in these areas. I have seen genuinely passable. And lots of "good enough until we fix the underlining issue". What I have never seen is offshored developers doing really good work. And I'm convinced their incentive structure will always punish anybody that tries.
    - anthk 3y ago
      I've seen turds as web pages at the Spanish Goverment or even the Healthcare systems. Those are designed to deliberaterly harm the user experience full of judicial jargon so companies in the middle can get lots of profit handling the "legalese" such as filling the taxes.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Hello, I'm a consultant. In practice it's just a fancy word for temps. Company hsa money and needs some engineers but don't want to hire or take up the burden of employment, and / or needs some fresh bodies to wake up their in-house developers / make them fear for their own jobs because they've stagnated, they call us. But we're a relatively small consultancy (think hundreds instead of tens of thousands like the bigger players), so it's a bit more refined. We do have decent developers, but the issue with consultancy on that level is they're too smart for their own good, they will suggest an over-engineered solution that can't be maintained by anyone BUT these consultants and / or hired self-employed people. It's a weird fallacy, a weird rotating door of consultants and cycles of development where every 10 or so years they do a full rearchitecture / rebuild of their back-ends, while meanwhile some people just sit and maintain the existing - and working - core systems. It's massively wasteful. But it usually pays better than a regular in-house developer, and it's lower risk than going self-employed because you still work for an employer who pays you per month. I'm just salty that said employer creams off 2/3rds of my hourly rate.

jcelerier 3y ago

there's a ton of consulting companies which are humonguous. Companies like Accenture with 780000 employees, Tata Consultancy with 488000 consultants, CapGemini with 300k-ish... it's one of the largest businesses in the world

anthk 3y ago
These write big turds. If they can't afford to write a simple cross-platform QT5 based software for actual computing (AKA desktops except for niche usage on art with iPad for drawings and some audio production), they are doomed. Period.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Just to reword the sibling; none of those consultants ever created a best-selling piece of software. They are not the people that create the software you install on your machine. That task is usually done by a lone developer at some random place.
- xNeil 3y ago
  I mean, I don't think that's exactly a fair comparison. These companies are focused a lot (and I mean a lot) more on enterprise software than your regular desktop software. I'm talking about Banking Systems, Automation Platforms, Government Software, stuff that has no use outside the corporate world. And they do genuinely do good work in these areas. Sure, they're not pioneers or doing some groundbreaking research, but they do their job and they do their job well (of course there are exceptions - but these aren't 100 billion dollar companies for nothing).
  - mike_hock 3y ago
    > but these aren't 100 billion dollar companies for nothing Producing the best possible software doesn't produce the highest possible revenue. You'd want to produce something that works well enough that it's viable for the customer to keep hiring your consultants, but also makes it necessary to continuously keep hiring them. So that translates to producing the worst possible software that barely works. So no, they're not $100B companies for nothing. They know exactly how to walk that line.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    > And they do genuinely do good work in these areas. I have seen genuinely passable. And lots of "good enough until we fix the underlining issue". What I have never seen is offshored developers doing really good work. And I'm convinced their incentive structure will always punish anybody that tries.
  - anthk 3y ago
    I've seen turds as web pages at the Spanish Goverment or even the Healthcare systems. Those are designed to deliberaterly harm the user experience full of judicial jargon so companies in the middle can get lots of profit handling the "legalese" such as filling the taxes.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

Hello, I'm a consultant. In practice it's just a fancy word for temps. Company hsa money and needs some engineers but don't want to hire or take up the burden of employment, and / or needs some fresh bodies to wake up their in-house developers / make them fear for their own jobs because they've stagnated, they call us. But we're a relatively small consultancy (think hundreds instead of tens of thousands like the bigger players), so it's a bit more refined. We do have decent developers, but the issue with consultancy on that level is they're too smart for their own good, they will suggest an over-engineered solution that can't be maintained by anyone BUT these consultants and / or hired self-employed people. It's a weird fallacy, a weird rotating door of consultants and cycles of development where every 10 or so years they do a full rearchitecture / rebuild of their back-ends, while meanwhile some people just sit and maintain the existing - and working - core systems. It's massively wasteful. But it usually pays better than a regular in-house developer, and it's lower risk than going self-employed because you still work for an employer who pays you per month. I'm just salty that said employer creams off 2/3rds of my hourly rate.