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I completely disagree with both assertions. 1. On the idea that somehow technical debt is culturally ingrained in certain societies. Silicon Valley is filled

by eshvk 13y ago

I completely disagree with both assertions. 1. On the idea that somehow technical debt is culturally ingrained in certain societies. Silicon Valley is filled with countless programmers who continually drum the ship the shit out philosophy. If you haven't worked there, a rough sample of this forum's blog posts by clueless founders should indicate that. I have worked in enough American run American programmer driven companies to know that technical debt is not an abstraction. It is a reality that is reflected by programmer pressures. So it is not culture specific unless the culture you are talking about is programmer culture. 2. On the idea that western programmers care more about discipline rather than smarts. Programming interviews as evidenced by personal experience and the realms of rants written online are a perfect reflector of the fallacy of that assertion. How the fuck is writing depth first search or some other bullshit graph search algorithm in 2 minutes any sign that you are a good programmer to design an iOS app?

chaostheory 13y ago
> 1. On the idea that somehow technical debt is culturally ingrained in certain societies. It is. I can speak confidently about it (at least for China) since my family is from there, I was born in the region, and I worked in East Asia for period of time. I know the culture(s). Whether or not they are right or wrong, my Indian friends and colleagues have confirmed the same problem in their country of origin. Culture does matter in general and it affects things like technical debt. It's the reason why the US favors lawyers and bankers over engineers and programmers (and why Asia will most likely eclipse us in the long run), and the same reason that places like Japan have a dearth of entrepreneurs due to their fear of failure and aversion to risk. On a whole, people in mainland China just don't give a shit about anyone outside of their family (and maybe maybe their friends and even this is a stretch since it's a low trust society). All they really care about is maximizing their economic gains and increasing their social status. The cost (i.e. who you screw over) doesn't matter as long as it doesn't directly hurt anyone in their extended blood related family. Quality and a lot of other things suffer from this pervasive way of thinking. > 2. On the idea that western programmers care more about discipline rather than smarts. Maybe hot startups focus solely on smarts, but larger, older, and less hip companies tend to care more about experience and just competence (i.e. can you understand the work and get things done that doesn't end up being spaghetti?) instead of how brilliant you are.

by eshvk 13y ago

chaostheory 13y ago

> 1. On the idea that somehow technical debt is culturally ingrained in certain societies. It is. I can speak confidently about it (at least for China) since my family is from there, I was born in the region, and I worked in East Asia for period of time. I know the culture(s). Whether or not they are right or wrong, my Indian friends and colleagues have confirmed the same problem in their country of origin. Culture does matter in general and it affects things like technical debt. It's the reason why the US favors lawyers and bankers over engineers and programmers (and why Asia will most likely eclipse us in the long run), and the same reason that places like Japan have a dearth of entrepreneurs due to their fear of failure and aversion to risk. On a whole, people in mainland China just don't give a shit about anyone outside of their family (and maybe maybe their friends and even this is a stretch since it's a low trust society). All they really care about is maximizing their economic gains and increasing their social status. The cost (i.e. who you screw over) doesn't matter as long as it doesn't directly hurt anyone in their extended blood related family. Quality and a lot of other things suffer from this pervasive way of thinking. > 2. On the idea that western programmers care more about discipline rather than smarts. Maybe hot startups focus solely on smarts, but larger, older, and less hip companies tend to care more about experience and just competence (i.e. can you understand the work and get things done that doesn't end up being spaghetti?) instead of how brilliant you are.