then I believe it's good time to be in IT. Because those idiots who jumped in just for the f****** money would start moving away and only the ones who have real passion for this trade will get in.

Glory days...

It may do a lot. Its a very beautifully executed idea for a phone + personal music/media player and somewhat lightweight web browsing. The GPS ability is also excellent.

I have one and love it ... BUT, having said that. I WILL NOT RECOMMEND it as a serious PDF ebook reader.

All said and done, all the tough rules and whatever paperwork it involves ... in the end it will be worth all the effort.

I myself am considering moving to Switzerland even if it involves a change in profession.

They had me with their rail system but the mathematically proven fairness is the icing on the cake.

If you are an American now I am starting to believe the topic of this post a bit ... there may be actually something wrong ... is it ?

Coming to a conclusion just for the sake of it without sizing up and actually understanding what was being written ?

I am from India but have been working in the UK for the last 3 years and before that I worked for 2 years in India.

Having worked here in UK I have come across only a couple of super brilliant techies and at the same time I have worked with some of the worst coders ever, keeping in mind they claim to have worked for 10+ years in the industry but it doesn't reflect in their code ... they wouldn't even know whats the advantage of using 'if-else' instead of 'if' and so on.

The two years I worked in India (2003-2005) I never came across above mentioned level of incompetence. Even if a guy was fresh out of college he would have been dedicated to sit through the entire night to understand the stuff he was about to handle so that no mistakes were made. But this happened in companies which were no where close the size of Infy or Wipro and the likes. These were small companies formed by some very highly competitive and hard working people.

But I believe the scenario may have changed since then in India. When US and rest of the West started investing in India they gave some of the most unbelievable salaries to people who didn't think it was even possible to earn that much. I think the very first or second batch of people who started getting those kind of salaries were the people who came into the 'business of coding' were the ones who really wanted to be there in the first place i.e. loved being a techie , loved coding and delivered some serious quality.

But the money they were getting kind of stuck into the heads of the people who were to follow. They wanted to get in there for the lifestyle which could only be afforded if you had those kind of salaries. People who may not necessarily have loved to code for the rest of their lives but yes they do want that money. The effect of the money was such that even 10 year old kids in school wanted to be future 'Software Engineer' because their friend's daddy was one and was driving around in a then expensive Maruti Esteem (one of the first luxury cars to be manufactured in India and everybody wanted it)

I guess maybe that's the same in US as well. Most of the people who want to get into being a techie is probably because they don't really love coding but they want the money that quite a lot of people have managed to earn being in the same line of work.

Both bad and good coders (i like that term better than Software Engineer) exist be it in India or in the US and somewhere in the middle (recently I had the chance to maintain something written in Romania, and it was such a nightmare). If the company in the US does not interview the entire team in India/Philippines/whereever, then they themselves are taking a risk. Big shops like Infy, Wipro etc have a hiring process but the sheer size of these shops is clearly indicative of the risk. It should not be so difficult for a company to set up a small team of 2 or 3 competitive techies in the US company who interview the people in the outsourcing shop before they get started on the work ?

Or is it that even those 2 or 3 highly competitive people are not around, or if they are around they don't manage to see the good from the bad ? Or is it that the bottom line is so so so f*****g important that those companies don't even want to spend even little money and time on implementing a shortlisting criteria when they outsource work ?

I couldn't agree more on this. It is very important to be working with like minded sound headed people who know what they are doing. Even if you are in one of the best workplace layout with checked sound levels and your choice of music playing and all of the world's caffeinated beverages at your disposal ... and the person who they appointed as the 'Senior Java Architect' doesn't know what a hashcode is supposed to mean ... you are in a highly glorified hell. (and I was there recently ... and glad that I am not in there any more)