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I think that the Eastern Bloc is largely irrelevant. The programmers here are from top notch to complete morons. From anecdotal evidence - this is the same ever

I think that the Eastern Bloc is largely irrelevant. The programmers here are from top notch to complete morons. From anecdotal evidence - this is the same everywhere in the world. I know of similar projects where the contractors who fucked up where from all around the world. Incompetence knows no national borders.

austenallred 12y ago
I lived in eastern Ukraine for a couple years, and some of the people there were the best engineers/hackers I've ever met; I wouldn't dispute that there are shops just as competent if not more so in the Eastern Bloc. But it is relevant because there is no real legal recourse, so you're pretty much crossing your fingers and hoping that they won't screw you.
- alex_hitchins 12y ago
  I would spend a proportionate amount of time looking into the firm and talk to past customers (where possible) before putting money anywhere, regardless of where they are located. Plenty of legal loopholes for domestic firms to deliver a less than desirable product and run away with the fees. I too will say that all of the Eastern Block developers I have worked with, both on site and remotely have been excellent.
jacquesm 12y ago
In case that wasn't clear from the article, the project manager was a local. I'll update to make this clearer.
hobs 12y ago
Not limited to software even. Whether it is a building contractor, an employee/r, the government, etc, if you do not have accountability in the system people will simply exploit it. It is a truth of human nature, we are min-maxers to the core.
cubano 12y ago
Perhaps he was mentioning that not to disparage them, but to explain why trying to communicate with them would be somewhat more difficult than a shop located in the same time zone? Certainly, many EB programmers are very highly-skilled.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Definitely not to disparage them.
  - venomsnake 12y ago
    I didn't took it that way. It is just systematic risk of outsourcing. If a person is not in the same building with you, you are making a leap of faith (or sometimes even for a team in the same building). I am sure that if we make an "Poll HN: At what distance away from you was the team/person that turned your project into nightmare?" we will find pretty even distribution in the brackets.
danmaz74 12y ago
There are great coders and bad coders everywhere, but the more distant the team is (geographically and culturally) the more difficult it gets to evaluate them: It's more difficult to do interviews, it's more difficult to get background information and friends-of-friends recommendations etc.
mcguire 12y ago
Probably be better put as "contractors from a different country, speaking a different language, and with a different legal system." The specific country doesn't matter, what does in that you have no idea what they're doing and they have no idea what you want.
sologoub 12y ago
The original comment seems to have misquoted this part: "I don’t blame them for this, they were placed in a nearly impossible situation by their customer, the (dutch, not associated with the company that built the whole thing) project manager was dictating what hardware they were going to have to run their project on (I have a suspicion why but that’s another story)" Sounds like the project manager was also outsourced to a 3rd entity and may have had some vested interest in the hardware part of the project. This just goes to show that the financial interests of those steering the "ship" better be aligned with those of the "ship" itself, or hilarity/misery ensues.

austenallred 12y ago

I lived in eastern Ukraine for a couple years, and some of the people there were the best engineers/hackers I've ever met; I wouldn't dispute that there are shops just as competent if not more so in the Eastern Bloc. But it is relevant because there is no real legal recourse, so you're pretty much crossing your fingers and hoping that they won't screw you.

alex_hitchins 12y ago
I would spend a proportionate amount of time looking into the firm and talk to past customers (where possible) before putting money anywhere, regardless of where they are located. Plenty of legal loopholes for domestic firms to deliver a less than desirable product and run away with the fees. I too will say that all of the Eastern Block developers I have worked with, both on site and remotely have been excellent.

jacquesm 12y ago

In case that wasn't clear from the article, the project manager was a local. I'll update to make this clearer.

hobs 12y ago

Not limited to software even. Whether it is a building contractor, an employee/r, the government, etc, if you do not have accountability in the system people will simply exploit it. It is a truth of human nature, we are min-maxers to the core.

cubano 12y ago

Perhaps he was mentioning that not to disparage them, but to explain why trying to communicate with them would be somewhat more difficult than a shop located in the same time zone? Certainly, many EB programmers are very highly-skilled.

jacquesm 12y ago
Definitely not to disparage them.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  I didn't took it that way. It is just systematic risk of outsourcing. If a person is not in the same building with you, you are making a leap of faith (or sometimes even for a team in the same building). I am sure that if we make an "Poll HN: At what distance away from you was the team/person that turned your project into nightmare?" we will find pretty even distribution in the brackets.

danmaz74 12y ago

There are great coders and bad coders everywhere, but the more distant the team is (geographically and culturally) the more difficult it gets to evaluate them: It's more difficult to do interviews, it's more difficult to get background information and friends-of-friends recommendations etc.

mcguire 12y ago

Probably be better put as "contractors from a different country, speaking a different language, and with a different legal system." The specific country doesn't matter, what does in that you have no idea what they're doing and they have no idea what you want.

sologoub 12y ago

The original comment seems to have misquoted this part: "I don’t blame them for this, they were placed in a nearly impossible situation by their customer, the (dutch, not associated with the company that built the whole thing) project manager was dictating what hardware they were going to have to run their project on (I have a suspicion why but that’s another story)" Sounds like the project manager was also outsourced to a 3rd entity and may have had some vested interest in the hardware part of the project. This just goes to show that the financial interests of those steering the "ship" better be aligned with those of the "ship" itself, or hilarity/misery ensues.