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Posted by Steve Larson on December 18, 2007, 9:06 pm
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No flames here, you are spot-on in your assessment.
> On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:47:01 -0700, JimH
>
>>bjn wrote:
>><snip>
>>>>
>>>> Now let me see concrete evidence that programmers in South Asia
>>>> (or any other country) are less competent, or produce lower
>>>> quality products than,
>>>> let's say, American programmers.
>>>
>>> Quicken is at r5 and it's not even next year yet.
>>
>>I retired from software development in 2006. I used to develop test
>>drivers and device drivers for just about all of the various operating
>>systems for use in testing storage devices. I worked with Indian
>>programmers on some projects. They were very sharp, friendly, hard
>>working guys. They were always willing to take turns working nights in
>>order to be available for conference calls. The code that they developed
>>was as good as most of what I saw from the American programmers.
>>
>>I'm not a fan of high tech American jobs being shipped overseas, but it
>>seems inevitable. I just think that our government should stop offering
>>tax incentives for doing it.
>>
>>I don't have Q-2008, so I can't speculate about the quality of it. I
>>just bought 2007 at Amazon. But, the release numbers don't necessarily
>>mean that the quality of the developers is poorer. The reduced costs of
>>development may let them accelerate patch releases. Instead of waiting
>>until 10 things are fixed, they can release updates for each one of
>>them. I don't know if that is the case, but it is a possibility.
>>
>>Also, from reading here, one release was a security update for the file
>>encryption. Those are the kind of things that probably wouldn't have
>>gotten done with the higher price of developing software in the US. For
>>less money, they can hire more programmers in India than they could here.
>
> IMHO, the Q08 quality is very poor. There were way too many bugs (the
> tax planner was flat-out broken), and the application behaves in a way
> indicating its internal structure is messed up. Like, the screen
> often flickers 10 or more times when doing an operation, because the
> code isn't sure what's really on the screen, so it's playing the,
> "let's be safe and repaint those controls," game.
>
> IMHO, the four updates aren't because they're "accelerating" patches.
> (But, nice try. :-) )
>
> I think the quality problems in Intuit's products aren't the fault of
> programmers, developers, or testers per se. That is, the problem
> isn't that Mary is sitting at her keyboard doing Java or C coding, and
> makes a mistake, and writes crappy code.
>
> The problem, if there is one (and I think there is, but I'm sure
> others do not), is one of software project management. Whether the
> developers and testers are here or in Vietnam doesn't matter. What
> does matter is how their development cycles are managed, what metrics
> they use, the testing done before a release, whether a tester can pull
> the brake cord on a release, how open the communication paths are,
> etc.
>
> You have to manage offshore development differently than developers
> who live down the hall from you. IMHO, local development is superior
> to offshore development for new products, but offshore can pay off in
> routine maintenance or testing. But no matter _what_ you choose to
> do, each development team type needs different kinds of project
> management and communication styles.
>
> IMHO, Intuit has fallen flat on its face with Q08, and I think
> whomever is responsible for development and test management, and for
> product direction, ought to have their head on a platter. Q08 is a
> joke. Most of the new features are eye candy and/or are
> "improvements" on things that simply didn't need improvement. And
> while I don't, like anyone else here, know Intuit's internal bug
> reporting, I'm very sure that this app has been way more buggy than
> other apps I've bought, of equal or greater complexity.
>
> Just my $.02. Flames welcome. Not that they will need an invitation.
> :-)
>
> John
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