Subj : Re: Industry Calls for More Foreign Programmers
To   : comp.programming
From : topmind
Date : Sat Aug 20 2005 10:48 pm

> US born techies have never controlled the industry. In fact, in good
> times, programmers essentially shared the right-wing ideology of their
> managers.
>
> Programmers when employed manifested zero solidarity with other workers
> and as a result they are today powerless against forces that in the USA
> have turned against them.


Agreed. Farmers get subsidies because they lobbied, NOT because they
are globally competative. If you think about it, the reasons for our
higher cost of living than Bangalore is due to direct or indirect
protections from global competition of some kind. Thus, we have to
compete on Indian wages, yet pay for US medical care. If we open the
gates and let IT visa workers flood in, why not also let in doctors,
lawyers, automechanics, dentists, truck drivers, etc so that our cost
of living is competative with Bangalore? Why not? Because either big
biz has not targeted them yet, or they have various political
protections against visa floods.


>
> I have NO sympathy for US programmers who years ago learned one or two
> languages without learning computer science and who preferred to call
> code that used features and approaches with which they were unfamiliar,
> "Sanskrit". The Sanskrit joke is on them.

But businesses does not demand such acedemic knowledge, mostly focusing
on specific tools. We are thus giving the capitalists what they want.
Most of university teaching is out-of-date anyhow in my experience. I
had tons of training on how to build link lists, but relatively little
on databases. Now my usage ratio of linked lists to databases is about
1-to-1000.

>
> My belief is that "organizing" today against H1B and offshore is a
> waste of time. Instead, labor needs One Big Union for All the Workers.
> Until that time, let the competition rip, I say.

Only if the competition is spread equal (per above). Don't throw some
careers to the sharks of globalism but not others. Fuck all or fuck
none (or fuck everyone say 10%).

Lawyers cost about twice as much as programmers. It appears there is a
shortage of lawyers, not programmers. Thus, why not target the most
expensive first? Let's flood the market with cheaper, more desparate
and docile visa lawyers rather than picking on programmers. 

-T-

.