Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:18:17 -0800 From: Norm Matloff To: Norm Matloff Subject: Lou Dobbs segment about Indian programming quality To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter Enclosed below is the transcript of a segment from tonight's Lou Dobbs Show. The theme is that Indian programmers don't seem to be very good, due to the lack of Indians among winners of an international programming contest. The claim is then made that all that recent offshoring of programming work to India is ill-advised. I agree that the offshoring is ill-advised, but not for the reasons given on the Dobbs show. First, I've never put much stock in contests. Some of you may recall that I am very critical of the Westinghouse (now Intel) high school science contest, which in my opinion became quite a sham over the years. And though what little I know about TopCoder indicates that the contest itself is pretty rigorous, a major problem is that the contestants are self-selecting. The claim that the contestants in TopCoder are the only super-programmers in the world is laughably absurd. And once it gets a bit of a reputation, it becomes something like the Olympics, manipulatable. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if the governments of some countries are paying excellent programmers to participate, even though they may not have done so without the incentive. I guarantee you that if the Indian government decides to get its best programmers active in the contest, you'll see many more Indians do well in it. And by the way, among foreign students who win the ACM Dissertation Award (ACM is the main computer science society), the Indians dominate, at a far higher rate than their numbers among foreign students studying computer science would predict. And if Dobbs' goal was to use the TopCoder results to put down offshoring, why, all the U.S. firms would have to do is shift their offshoring from India to China, since China did well in the contest. So, Dobbs has the right conclusion for the wrong reason. Here are the right reasons: 1. Software development requires constant face-to-face contact. Offshoring, or even outsourcing to domestic companies, is generally a bad idea. 2. In order to minimze costs, the Indian offshoring companies employ many young, very inexperienced programmers, with unsurprisingly poor results. By the way, I'm sure all the promoters of offshoring will bombard Dobbs with the "information" that Indian programming is actually of HIGHER quality than that in the U.S. They will trumpet the fact that so many firms have a high rating on the CMM scale. But CMM does NOT measure software quality, as CMM's own creators readily point out; it merely is a set of homilies on project management. See http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/CMMHype.txt Norm http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0501/31/ldt.01.html LOU DOBBS TONIGHT Aired January 31, 2005 - 18:00 ET ... CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In head-to-head competition, American-based computer programmers win. Connecticut's TopCoder runs competitions to find the best and the brightest. The prizes are thousands of dollars and job offers from top tech companies. 76,000 contestants from all over the world have tackled TopCoder's math and science problems. The champions come from the U.S., Poland, Canada, China and Germany. Indian programmers and universities lagged far behind. An Indian-based coder has never finished in the top ten of any division and only once has finished in the top 20. JACK HUGHES, FOUNDER, TOPCODER: Knowing algorithms, which is really the underlying piece of any logic in a computer program, is an extremely important skill for programmers. So the fact that Indians haven't placed particularly well in our competitions to me shows that that's not being focused on enough in the education system. ROMANS: The best programmers come from MIT, Stanford, Warsaw University, California Tech, and number five, China's Zhejiang University. Indian universities don't show up until number 60 and 89. Technology headhunters say companies can outsource some remedial programming jobs, but the best-trained and most-productive computer architects are still educated here. MARY VOSS, CEO, FOXHUNT STAFFING: In the United States, we have a history of technical education far beyond that of other countries, simply because we've been at it longer. (END VIDEOTAPE) ROMANS: At it longer, and Lou, she says we've got to keep at it. We have got to make sure that science and math education at all levels is very important so that the United States can stay on top. That's the view from headhunters. DOBBS: It's also the view, I think, for most educators and most people who care about American competitiveness. Another way to look at this report that you've just shared with us is straightforward. When corporate America starts talking about running down the productivity of American workers, working men and women in this country, their lack of education, their ineffectiveness, what they're really talking about, again, code words, nothing more than for cheapest possible labor. And it's not about quality, and it's about time everybody got real. Christine, thanks for the report. Appreciate it. ... (COMMERCIAL BREAK) DOBBS: The results of our poll tonight: In your opinion, has the United States lost control of its borders? Ninety-six percent of you said yes. Four percent of you said no. Ninety-six percent. Perhaps somebody in Washington should pay attention to that sort of definitive response. Thanks for participating in the poll. Thanks for being with us tonight. Please join us here tomorrow. A leading congressman is calling for federal, state and local authorities to finally enforce our immigration laws. He's our guest tomorrow. And also tomorrow, "Exporting America." Our special report on why India no longer may be the low cost draw it once was. And I'll be talking with one of this country's most distinguished professors who says the war in Iraq is sapping the vitality of the U.S. military. Please be with us. For all of us here, good night from New York.