[PJUG Javamail] Is software engineering in the US dead?

[David H Elrod]

I was once working on a Java front end for a Digital X-Ray
system.  The code had passed industry interoperability
tests, but it still needed a lot of work on the GUI to make
it easier to use- and things showed up in testing that needed
to be addressed before putting it in front of doctors and
nurses.

Suddenly the project was moved to China, because the US
route was too expensive.

My "boss", in Japan, tried to convince the folks above him not
to take this step, but failed.  He told me that in his experience...

Work done outside of US and Western Europe:
+ Generally was delivered on time.
+ Cost very close to the original budget amount.
+ Met the specifications almost exactly.

Work done in the US and Europe:
+ Usually took 50% to 100% longer than estimated.
+ Generally ran 50% to 200% over budget
+ Generally came close the the specs, but ...

He said that the market changed so rapidly around the
world, that they (huge Japanese international company)
couldn't accurately specify the product.  He said the
code done in the US and Western Europe often didn't
meet the original specifications because the developers
saw the changing markets and adapted the product during
development.

"If the specification says the software must support
GIF images", he said, "the US/Western Europe version
will have a table built in so that adding JPEG and PNG
can be done by extending the contract a few months.
The 'other' version will end up with 'GIF' hardcoded in
to various parts of the code, and to add new images
might require a total re-write of the product."

He explained that developers such as myself would
push back if we feel a feature should or should-not be
in the product, and try to get the spec changed.  He
had found that this "push-back" often indicated that
the spec was not (or no longer) met with where the
market was going, and sometimes ended up being a
feature that would make or break the product's
usability or saleability.

He said, that in his experience, the US/Western European
version was harder to manage, but when they FINALLY
got a product - it was something they could use and sell.
It took longer to recover their investment, but they COULD
recover their investment.  He said that most of the code t
hey had written from other places needed a whole lot of
work, and more often than not was dropped.

I don't know if this tradeoff of "flexibility" vs. "time/money"
still applies, but I suspect it often does.

David Elrod
dhelrod at rivendell.com