we love you,gates

I knew why MS can be a big company in the world, because their chairman is a farsighted and smart man.

zdnet.com wrote:

"WASHINGTON--Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates slammed the federal government's strict limits on temporary visas for technology workers, saying that if he had his way, the system would be scrapped entirely." quote fromhttp://news.zdnet.com/Gates+wants+to+scrap+H-1B+visa+restrictions/2100-3513_22-5687039.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn"> http://news.zdnet.com/

I'm not smart enough to say how the H-1B program affect western civilization as a whole, but the few people I've seen that went through the program were all positive. It was positive for the people involved, for the company, and you know what? Eventually, some of them became American citizens, so positive for the country.

As for the pay issue. Yeah, you can't fix the standards of living overnight. But everyone has a right to make their lives better. I wonder if the "world economy" only applies when it only benefits us.

Minh wrote:

As for the pay issue. Yeah, you can't fix the standards of living overnight. But everyone has a right to make their lives better. I wonder if the "world economy" only applies when it only benefits us.

Michael Griffiths wrote:

Minh wrote: As for the pay issue. Yeah, you can't fix the standards of living overnight. But everyone has a right to make their lives better. I wonder if the "world economy" only applies when it only benefits us.

Oh, it does.

Why?

Becuase people care if their jobs are outsourced. Now, over twice as many jobs have been created in the US because of outsourcing as have been exported and lost.

But people still don't like it. Catch words.

And funnily enough, all those tariffs and trade agreements that protect American workers are really just extending their pain... eventually, they'll have to move into different industries as the economy changes.

Ah, well. Interesting debate.

Mike Powell wrote:

I think you're onto something there. The economic

structure, and implied supporting laws, has a great deal to do with a country's

ability to innovate.

The US capalistic economy is very fluid. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, can pull

together a business plan (I use that term very loosely) and give it a try. Most

crash and burn. Some do okay. A few make miracles.

US law protects private ownership of property including intellectual property. If

your idea (and business skills) are good, you personally see the benefit. So there

is big personal incentive to innovate.
 
I've worked in university academic research, industrial research, and the US

military. I've seen extremes of smart and dumb in all of them. While I've not

worked in any secret US gov't labs (only visited), I'd be surprised if they were

any different.

When the business/social/legal/etc. environment supports innovation, people

anywhere will create.

figuerres wrote:

hard to say for sure...

one thing I saw recently was a study to see if there was a genetic factor in the

"American" --
the idea has an interesting theory behind it.
most "Amaericans" come from folks who were willing to take a risk -- like leaving a

home country and moving half way around the world.... the "Westeren Spirit" of the

cowboy, miner, and store keeper as some examples are all prople who were willing to

leave the known life in a large city or other settled place and as we say "Bet the

farm" on the chnace that tye might make money and be able to do what they wanted to

do.

I think there is a thread of truth in this....

no matter what land someone came from or how recent they have arraived they are

almost always willing to take a risk and give it a try. and generaly do not want

others to tell them they can't do it.

when you have millions of people like that all trying to be the best then the ones

that do make it add up to a lot of hard working creative people and businesses.

not to say that mistakes are not made .... or that we are perfect ....

Why does Microsoft wants to hire programmers to only work in Redmond? Why don't they just create a new development studio in Europe?

ZippyV wrote:

Why don't they just create a new development studio in Europe?

Rossj wrote:

ZippyV wrote:Why don't they just create a new development studio in Europe?

*Very* good question. I guess they'd argue that they have MS Research in Europe.

W3bbo wrote:

Because we're smarter over here in Europe

For me that's great news. Even not being an American citizen (yet ), I worry about the unemployment rate very much.

Currently I'm doing outsourcing and some people may think I'm taking away the job of one American citizen, and believe it or not I also worry about that. However, next year I'm planning to get an F1 visa for studying in US. A decent college / university is around $20.000 year. All the money I earned here from outsourcing will return back to US to pay for the studies.

I believe outsourcing should be more like "paying smart brains to do things that our citizens can't do" rather than "paying amateur coders to do work much cheaper than we can get here".

With a little bit of luck, in the next few years after I finish the studies in US maybe I can get a small company up and therefore lower the unemployment rate. So what I'm trying to say is that (in my case at least) I will be rather helping the US economy.

I agree with what Mr. Gates said, because it's much better hiring the coder in US (and spending his money there) rather than letting the coder do outsourcing and bring dollars in his own country. Moreover, it's more likely that a programmer working at Microsoft will become a US citizen.

In a way. If someone comes to work at Microsoft in America they will have to work the kind of hours and take the amount of holidays American workers do.

This hits close to home as I have several relatives who live in the EU.  They get way more anual vacation but are taxed much more. 

The other plus with having most DEV's in redmond is the added security of not having development spread out around the globe.

Am I the only one who thinks Software Developers are overpaid (I shoud say, US Software Developers). Being one myself, I think I'm overpaid, when you think about how much teachers and nurses (those that are non-union) are paid / not paid.

MisterDonut wrote:

Am I the only one who thinks Software Developers are overpaid (I shoud say, US Software Developers). Being one myself, I think I'm overpaid, when you think about how much teachers and nurses (those that are non-union) are paid / not paid.

footballism wrote:

MisterDonut wrote: Am I the only one who thinks Software Developers are overpaid (I shoud say, US Software Developers). Being one myself, I think I'm overpaid, when you think about how much teachers and nurses (those that are non-union) are paid / not paid.

it is also true in China,we really have a lot of inqualified programmers,and they are actually over paid.they are not paid for what they really do,they are just paid for what they are called you know,programmer...

MisterDonut wrote:

You bring up an excellent point. There are software architects (and I mean a true architect, not someone who graduates to that title) which are worth their weight in gold, and likely do deserve a high salary. But I've known, worked with, and fired people who make far more than a teacher / nurse that was practically worthless. And they were both US and  non-US programmers alike. Nationality is not a reason to see whether or not someone is more qualified or not.

I actually meant more of like someone who can identify a business need, make a *good* object model from the need (after immersing themselves in the client's domain), and come up with a plan on how to build it.

But people I'm not talking about are people who create classes "on the fly", hacking defects, and can't see the big picture. Those are the people who are overpaid.

   I'm just an amateur dev,so I really don't have a deeper understanding of what actually constitutes a good software architect.

   but IMHO the good software architects are those who can really satisfy all customers needs and simultaneously can come up with a good design model,this model must be somthing with scalability,maintainability and flexibility etc...

Svendawg wrote:

This hits close to home as I have several relatives who live in the EU.  They get way more anual vacation but are taxed much more. 

Andrei P you are going to die!  Dont you even think about coming to my country and try to steal our jobs, you damn indian!!!


lol, it's okay andrei.