The knowledge economy myth

asdasd

Why bother with programming, when this kind of stuff can be done by code monkeys in India for the fraction of the cost here?

Hmm, the term code monkeys has become more popular recently, partly because code writing has moved to India. That doesnt make it any less easy, or something that monkeys can actually do.

Even the most trivial project has, probably, more intellectual problem solving than say being a barrister ( which is a matter of rote learning, mostly).

I agree, however, that there is a problem with the idea that the Knowledge Economy will save "us" - us being the general West. Why would it? Indians can do that as well, and innovate too. Eventually they will. This is unfortunate as it makes the salaries of engineers fall to a level where the smartest will go elsewhere - probably, as in England, - to banking where they will feck up the world economy once again.

That said all successful companies in IT will have people with engineering, or computer science degrees making the decisions, and coming up with the ideas. Like google, yahoo, Apple etc. The problem with IT is that too many muppets with no understanding of any thing besides marketing, or bizness, are in charge and not only can you not trust these people to make the right decisions day to day, you can generally not trust them to hire anybody good.

That said there is nothing the government can do.

Cannibal Ox

Amhran Nua wrote:

third world

Developing states. It's slightly bizarre that someone who is trying to hawk a political party doesn't know that

Amhran Nua wrote:

It depends on third world countries respecting your IP, so the "brains" in the west provide the schematics for the "backs" in the east.

Developing states are already shackled in to "respecting" the West's IP through the TRIPs agreement. And a fine agreement it is, denying millions of people access to cheap, generic medicine and condemning them to death because, shucks, we just gotta protect our IP. If any developing state seriously infringes the TRIPs agreement, they tend to be dragged before the WTO and told to shape up.

If you're worried that China or India will take all our IPs, I gotta wonder if it's occurred to you that China or India may well soon have IPs that they want protected, and it may well be in their interest to ensure that agreements like TRIPs are respected by other countries? IP law will get stricter and stricter because the world is changing from a unipolar world to a multi, and while old agreements might have been enough for the US's purposes, China, India, and the EU will start pushing even harder to protect the ideas that they develop.

Amhran Nua wrote:

The largest economies on earth are massive exporters for a reason, and thats where we need to focus our energies.

Because they have massive populations. Do you think Ireland, with a population of 4 million, can compete with the US, India, Germany, Brazil, or China in manufacturing? Really? Really?

The sad fact is that the only competitive advantage this country possibly has is in its citizens heads. It doesn't have any advantage when it comes to manufacturing, so pursuing that as the main drive of our economy is tantamount to suicide.

asdasd

Do you think Ireland, with a population of 4 million, can compete with the US, India, Germany, Brazil, or China in manufacturing? Really? Really?

Probably he means per-capita.

The sad fact is that the only competitive advantage this country possibly has is in its citizens heads. It doesn't have any advantage when it comes to manufacturing, so pursuing that as the main drive of our economy is tantamount to suicide.

Our citizens heads, eh? F*cekd then :-)

thebman

asdasd wrote: »

Hmm, the term code monkeys has become more popular recently, partly because code writing has moved to India. That doesnt make it any less easy, or something that monkeys can actually do.

Even the most trivial project has, probably, more intellectual problem solving than say being a barrister ( which is a matter of rote learning, mostly).

I agree, however, that there is a problem with the idea that the Knowledge Economy will save "us" - us being the general West. Why would it? Indians can do that as well, and innovate too. Eventually they will. This is unfortunate as it makes the salaries of engineers fall to a level where the smartest will go elsewhere - probably, as in England, - to banking where they will feck up the world economy once again.

That said all successful companies in IT will have people with engineering, or computer science degrees making the decisions, and coming up with the ideas. Like google, yahoo, Apple etc. The problem with IT is that too many muppets with no understanding of any thing besides marketing, or bizness, are in charge and not only can you not trust these people to make the right decisions day to day, you can generally not trust them to hire anybody good.

That said there is nothing the government can do.

Well I think you can of course say developing countries can do these things but realistically you can separate yourself as high cost with proper branding.

Other western companies are going to be more comfortable dealing with western companies and this obviously comes with a premium but one many will pay.

And as for manufacturing just look at the likes of Apple that are charging a couple of hundred dollars more than they should be able to with proper branding.

The reality is there is a market for high cost services.

Sponge Bob

Peanut wrote: »

I don't think the IP aspect is that important when talking about developing a tech. sector. In the software industry at least, the focus has moved away from selling packaged products, to providing a service which may be delivered over the web for example.

How ????

lmimmfn

i started programming when i was 11, so it doesnt have to come from school, i will admit though in this day and age its a disgrace that theyre arent any computer subjects at primary or secondary schools.

thebman

lmimmfn wrote: »

i started programming when i was 11, so it doesnt have to come from school, i will admit though in this day and age its a disgrace that theyre arent any computer subjects at primary or secondary schools.

True me too but if it was on offer in schools, it would wake people up to it that don't realise they are interested in the field.

It would also help people decide on CAO forms if they want to go into computer courses.

In my computer course in first year, half the class dropped out in the first month because they were shown a hello world C++ program and they all said I didn't know it was going to be this kind of thing, I haven't a clue.

Most of them had never heard of the command prompt in windows let alone ever used DOS which people my age with an interest would have done so it was a massive gap for those people.

The one reason programming is a great thing for Ireland is that as long as you have a communications infrastructure (which you have jobs maintaining), location isn't a major issue and our location can be an advantage as seen with Ms new data centre that utilises the consistency of climate in Ireland for cooling.

csm

To be fair, if they didn't have the wherewithal to research their chosen subject even just a little bit, it's a good thing they left without degrees. Those people didn't need computers in their schools, they needed classes in initiative and a healthy dose of cop on. Unfortunately that's something that most people don't get until they've grown up a little.

thebman

csm wrote: »

To be fair, if they didn't have the wherewithal to research their chosen subject even just a little bit, it's a good thing they left without degrees. Those people didn't need computers in their schools, they needed classes in initiative and a healthy dose of cop on. Unfortunately that's something that most people don't get until they've grown up a little.

Unfortunately there will always be 16 year olds that don't do their homework

Kalashnikov_Kid

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Sorry, that is just not true. One could argue that if you have good logical and numerical abilities, you actually have a distinct advantage in the points system over the humanities - i.e. if you are capable of an A1 in Maths, you have skills that can easily be transferable to get an A1 in Applied Maths, Physics and Chemistry - 400 points in the bag.

You cannot apply that logic to the humanities - all subjects marked on grounds of subjectivity, not on a right/wrong binary like the maths subjects. English, History, Geography, Art etc. are largely seperate entities and I for one would certainly not scoff at anyone getting A1's across the board in these.

If you have a natural strong mathematical ability, you should do very well across the board if you put the work in, while at the same time you may not be able to string two sentances together in a coherant manner - why should we reward this?

And don't some university courses give points bonuses for Honours results in Maths-based subjects?

shoegirl

SLUSK wrote: »

Why bother with programming, when this kind of stuff can be done by code monkeys in India for the fraction of the cost here?

True but there are lots of other areas in IT sorely lacking skills - operational management, documentation, informtion systems management, projects management.

That said a significant problem is that generally companies don't train programmers from the ground up anymore. They expect ready made, fully skilled, just-add-water instant employees fresh out of college.

To be honest, and I say this as somebody working in IT moving more and more towards the business side, especially operations management. One thing i see is huge skills deficits, lack of resources for training and upskilling, a lot of personal laziness and overestimation of skills (especially amongst unqualified IT workers), a lot of complacency. But one issue is a huge gap in business knowledge amongst IT workers and IT amongst businesspeople.

SLUSK

shoegirl wrote: »

True but there are lots of other areas in IT sorely lacking skills - operational management, documentation, informtion systems management, projects management.

That said a significant problem is that generally companies don't train programmers from the ground up anymore. They expect ready made, fully skilled, just-add-water instant employees fresh out of college.

To be honest, and I say this as somebody working in IT moving more and more towards the business side, especially operations management. One thing i see is huge skills deficits, lack of resources for training and upskilling, a lot of personal laziness and overestimation of skills (especially amongst unqualified IT workers), a lot of complacency. But one issue is a huge gap in business knowledge amongst IT workers and IT amongst businesspeople.

I don't think this really answered my question in full, why could not all these other areas be outsourced as well?

thebman

SLUSK wrote: »

I don't think this really answered my question in full, why could not all these other areas be outsourced as well?

Because it doesn't make sense in many cases as they won't have the knowledge for the software being developed such as in Ireland, Irish phrases or different things. We also have a good understanding of data protection laws in our own country and as recent credit card detail leaking in some outsourced centres will demonstrate when you pay peanuts, people will take it upon themselves to bump up their wages.

amacachi

The best way to sort out our education system is some kinda of streaming based on performance, but it'll never happen in this country. Outside of the luvvy schools we'll still have the 5% who are messers and 5% who should be in special needs holding the other 90% back.

In primary school (up to 2001) we had Acorn computers and it wasn't until 6th class we got online. Which was a dial-up connection divided among 30 computers. Cue secondary and it was 2003 before a usuable internet connection was available. Every student had a half-hours "computers" class a week which consisted of MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint repeated for 6 bloody years. Not even a little html ffs.

Myself and a couple of others were lucky in Primary school in that most teachers gave us extra work to keep us from getting bored, most teachers aren't as attentive alas, or can't be.

Peanut

Sponge Bob wrote: »

How ????

You can run an online business in Ireland, the great thing is that you don't need to keep your hardware there!

lmimmfn

thebman wrote: »

True me too but if it was on offer in schools, it would wake people up to it that don't realise they are interested in the field.

It would also help people decide on CAO forms if they want to go into computer courses.

In my computer course in first year, half the class dropped out in the first month because they were shown a hello world C++ program and they all said I didn't know it was going to be this kind of thing, I haven't a clue.

Most of them had never heard of the command prompt in windows let alone ever used DOS which people my age with an interest would have done so it was a massive gap for those people.

The one reason programming is a great thing for Ireland is that as long as you have a communications infrastructure (which you have jobs maintaining), location isn't a major issue and our location can be an advantage as seen with Ms new data centre that utilises the consistency of climate in Ireland for cooling.

I agree 100% with all that you say, in my Bsc 50% had dropped out from first year to final year, and again youre right in that maybe 20% of those in my first year dropped out because they didnt have a clue what programming entailed.

The one + point i will give for Ireland is that if you have an idea of what you want to do its very easy to nourish that taste and to develop it into both a job and a passion. However from a government point of view, they've done 0 to invest in this area, whether in communications or in a training capacity.

One of the worlds most prominent software exporters my ass, broadband penetration and speed is in the stone age, theres no government incentive for teleworking even though its such a rural country and on top of that there are no incentives to train kids early in IT( to give direction or allow them to form an opinion on it ). You get a few hours a week in primary and secondary school for art, thats not worth a crap in comparison for the need of knowledge of how to use a computer in todays society, not only that poor folk wont have their PC or broadband putting them at an extreme disadvantage.

Diarmuid

Kalashnikov_Kid wrote: »

Sorry, that is just not true. One could argue that if you have good logical and numerical abilities, you actually have a distinct advantage in the points system over the humanities - i.e. if you are capable of an A1 in Maths, you have skills that can easily be transferable to get an A1 in Applied Maths, Physics and Chemistry - 400 points in the bag.

You cannot apply that logic to the humanities - all subjects marked on grounds of subjectivity, not on a right/wrong binary like the maths subjects. English, History, Geography, Art etc. are largely seperate entities and I for one would certainly not scoff at anyone getting A1's across the board in these.

But you conveniently did not compare Maths / Physics / Chemistry to English / Irish / French / German. People good at logical/numerical will do well at the first in the same manner that people good at languages will do well at the second.

ei.sdraob

Peanut wrote: »

You can run an online business in Ireland, the great thing is that you don't need to keep your hardware there!

Thats exactly what I/we are doing here now

I'm myself spending most time lately testing and programming (and I love my job!) software for own company servers, which are all in US and continent because as i mentioned before, bandwidth prices are 20x-40x as expensive here in Ireland [our servers use more gbit than goes thru Inex ] and electricity is also very expensive, hence its much cheaper to collocate abroad, only downside is the weak dollar against euro it works in your favor with costs but against you in income

I did IT/Soft Eng degree, and the numbers were terrible many years back, 90 started 4 years later 25 graduated, the maths threw alot of people of
Then finished research engineering masters, i have to say I am grateful for the near free education I received here in Ireland

alot of people like to moan, but the science and engineering courses are there but are being barely taken up by people, and most of all they are very interesting courses! and yes there are jobs available even in this day

heck theres a job advert right here on adverts.ie which i would have jumped at few years ago


offtopic: anyone see mcwilliams thingie last night? where he shown how China want to leapfrog the west in technology terms

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

shoegirl

thebman wrote: »

Because it doesn't make sense in many cases as they won't have the knowledge for the software being developed such as in Ireland, Irish phrases or different things. We also have a good understanding of data protection laws in our own country and as recent credit card detail leaking in some outsourced centres will demonstrate when you pay peanuts, people will take it upon themselves to bump up their wages.

Actually what is killing the offshore outsourcing market at the moment is increasing Islamic millitant terrorism in previous "safe" places like Pakistan, Indonesia and India itself, and Mexico starting to take Colombia's mantle as a dangerous drug-smuggling soaked place. Even Malaysia is losing its mantle as "civillised" due to increasing Islamic fundamentalism (they are currently debating their first public female caning for a Muslim woman caught drinking alcohol) and Thailand's continuous political instability and massive corruption is making is less attractive. Companies that have already sold their souls and replaced US and Euro employees with offshored ones are facing increasing scrutiny from clients as to exactly what happens when there is a large terrorist problem in the city (which is actually now happening once or twice a year in some regions previously considered "safe").

This is regardless, by the way, of what IT area you are dealing with.

Niall Keane

Not so long ago China tendered for a specialist contractor to provide trains for their Beijing tube system. A German firm, I believe, was awarded the contract based on cost; they had cut the proposed cost of this contract as they had been influenced by the possibility of providing more of the same for all of China's cities. It didn't happen, the day the first train arrived an army of Chinese engineers arrived and took it apart detailing everything. They German firm was left there holding their lad, with no further business.

Think of all of the building work on the lead up to the 2008 Olympics. Some of the world’s top Architects and Engineers were working there alongside their Chinese staff on some of the most advanced buildings on the planet. Buildings that simply leave us behind regarding scale, efficiency and innovation of structural and sustainable methods employed.

Pre 2008 our best taught them, they now have assessed and consolidated this knowledge, soon they will be teaching us!

That was construction; it will be the same in every field. Innovative medicine, well they'll just build the hybrid labs, and provide the facilities so the best in the field will want to use them and end up training the local staff, so forget about trying to compete in the knowledge economy, for a country to gain cutting edge knowledge it simply has to commission a project that requires a cutting edge solution. China has the resources and manpower to carry out such projects, last night on RTE China's electric car is set to bypass the whole BMW excellence in petrol engine engineering abilities. Of course the Chinese are savers so it has the economic muscle to invest in such new innovative enterprises. We're bankrupt, so can only invest in short term gain.

If someone has world class expertise and innovate methods in a field my advice is to sell it to the likes of China for serious cash, with the intention of retiring within 3-5 years, because once the secret is out your salary / fee will hit third world levels.

As a country this approach, selling knowledge, cannot be sustainable, we would all need to be inventing life-changing technologies or methodologies every five years or so, how cocky we've become if we think this is on. The west being a knowledge base and the east a workhorse is simply an extension of the outdated racist Whiteman’s burden philosophy.

Like that German firm I aforementioned it won’t be long until we too are left behind at the station watching the world take off in a train we/ greed designed.

dvpower

^^ The Borg!

Kalashnikov_Kid

Diarmuid wrote: »

But you conveniently did not compare Maths / Physics / Chemistry to English / Irish / French / German. People good at logical/numerical will do well at the first in the same manner that people good at languages will do well at the second.

Both sets are a minority of total students. Again, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to focus on your strengths and be judged accordingly. The idea of weighting one subject over the other is pretty futile IMO. That's not what schooling should be about.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Good points. I guess I am drawing a lot from personal experiences - Maths was my only non-Honours subject out of 7 and I certainly didn't think I had it better off as a result. Like I tried Honours maths for a while and it was like chalk and cheese - I just didn't have the logical capabilities for it, while some others would piss around and still ace the tests. And I remember thinking if only I was good at maths I could do pass Irish and English and not worry about (like many of said people did) and get well over 400 points with minimal effort. I had no luxury in doing so.

It could be more to do with economic conditions than anything else. The likes of engineering during recession were always seen as safe bankers - for example my brother who was an ace maths student and was part of one of the first batch of Southern engineering students to take advantage of free university fees up North in 1994.

Then there was the dot com bubble and a huge rise in demand for IT degrees in the late 90s. And at the height of the Celtic Tiger, jobs (and degrees) were two-a-penny. So you would have people telling you (like they did to me in 2005) 'ah sure plenty of people employ graduates with an Arts degree'. So I went and did what I enjoyed - but how many Irish firms would employ someone with a bogstandard 2:1 B.A. these days?

You might find that there may be a swing towards the maths subjects again, due to economic conditions more than anything. Sure it is job prospects that shape student's decisions for the most part.

I'm not saying that I would scoff at such a person. But I would argue that the average Leaving Cert student will find it easier to do better at English, history, or geography than at mathematics, physics, or chemistry. Because the points awarded are the same, there is no incentive to try hard at the more difficult subjects. Really, what is the rationale for making an A1 in honours home economics equal to an A1 in honours physics?

I would disagree and would say it mainly comes down to individual strengths - logical, creative, intellectual or technical abilities. Again, maths was by far my worst subject and I don't see why I should have been penalised for this. And who is to say what skills are good for our economy in the long run? There is a reason why computer science commands lower points than it did 10 years ago...

No matter what we do, I feel that there will always be millions of Indians and Chinese who can program and compute data better and more efficiently than us. If anything, I would be more worried about the decline in the bio-sciences, as that is a real strength we have as a small country.

I actually know very few Leaving Cert students who can string two sentences together in a coherent manner -- in any subject. The standard of written English in this country is truly appalling. But that's another thread.

I agree. But you would think as a nation of English-speakers (if we like it or not), we would do more to rectify this, so as to dissuade companies relocating customer services to India and the like.

fergalr

People on this thread, in some of the earlier posts (Amhran Nua, I'm looking at you) make a direct equivalence between the idea of a knowledge economy and that of IP.

When people talk about a knowledge economy, it might be more helpful to interpret this as meaning a 'knowledge-based economy' - one based around the creation and manipulation of new information and knowledge, rather than just around the sale of existing knowledge.
While IP might be a useful tool or commodity in a knowledge economy, its not by any manner or means the same thing as it. It's an important distinction.


It takes a lot of years, and a lot of hard to get prerequisites to train/grow/get knowledge workers that are good at what they do.


To give one example:
The knowledge economy isn't really about knowing how a particular computer program works, and being able to sell that information, about how that particular computer program works, to the Chinese so they can mass produce it.
Its about knowing enough and being good enough to produce new computer programs that perform new tasks that add value.

To use another example:
Its relatively easy to mass produce an iphone. Its relatively easy to copy an existing phone. But its very hard to design and productise a device like an iphone when you haven't seen one before, and don't know how to solve the software and hardware problems that will arise. The idea of the knowledge economy is that whats important is the later skills, rather than the former.

I'm a 2nd year IT mature student.

Our Head of Department last year mentioned that Google here were looking to employe 100 graduates, not one graduate hired came from Ireland, the required calibre wasn't available here.

There was a 17 year old indian chap on my course last year, subjects such as Java and assembly were all a walk in the park for him as he was taught all off this in secondary school back in India.

Surely some technology related subjects should be offered in 2nd level?

Knowledge economy = Spin.

MysticalRain

NoDrama wrote: »

I'm a 2nd year IT mature student.

Our Head of Department last year mentioned that Google here were looking to employe 100 graduates, not one graduate hired came from Ireland, the required calibre wasn't available here.

Most of those are probably call center jobs that require a European language. So it's less a problem with IT skills, and more a problem with our backward-looking education system focusing more on teaching dead languages like Irish instead of European languages.

Niall Keane

fergalr interesting points:

To give one example:
The knowledge economy isn't really about knowing how a particular computer program works, and being able to sell that information, about how that particular computer program works, to the Chinese so they can mass produce it.
Its about knowing enough and being good enough to produce new computer programs that perform new tasks that add value.

To use another example:
Its relatively easy to mass produce an iphone. Its relatively easy to copy an existing phone. But its very hard to design and productise a device like an iphone when you haven't seen one before, and don't know how to solve the software and hardware problems that will arise. The idea of the knowledge economy is that whats important is the later skills, rather than the former.

Computer Programming isn’t my field, architecture is, and right now the architectural profession is aiming along the same lines at going down the knowledge based economy route, i.e. developing innovative green design solutions and technologies, and also selling our expertise to developing economies.

But is this sustainable? Once you develop a new system straight away others can adopt and improve upon it, all they need to do is understand the driving principles behind the design solution. How do they do that, well they work on the project. (As much as posters here want to believe that schools and colleges create a knowledgeable workforce, they don’t they provide an elementary understanding of a field to their graduates, they enable a person to begin the real education - acquired by practicing in the field working on serious projects alongside the professions / industries heavyweights. I know that most of my old college tutors wouldn’t know where to begin on some of the clinical / technical projects I am involved with. They might know how to produce a pretty house extension, but don’t even know about the existence of specialist requirements for more technically demanding buildings. A guy who designs a kitchen extension is not going to come across negative air pressure requirements and corresponding spatial design considerations for clean areas in labs and hospitals, he is never going to consider designing an independent structure within a structure so a TV studio can be acoustically insulated from all frequencies. Such considerations are in effect outside of their universe. And guys who do know this because they are working in the field have not got the time to be tutoring down at the local university.)

So China got the experts - Arup, Foster etc.. to design their buildings. The projects were grand enough and given the budget to justify exploring innovative solutions, now China has these buildings, they can see how they perform, what works and what should be avoided. In fact we in the west are now visiting these buildings to benchmark and learn from them. We had the brains to conceptualise the design, but the practical knowledge now belongs to China. It is those Chinese junior engineers and architects who worked on the projects, and are now maintaining them who will have a true understanding and be able to improve upon the initial developments. So in 10 years time it won’t be Arup or Foster with the impressive portfolio it will be a company as yet unheard of in Shanghai or somewhere else in China.
I imagine this must occur in computer programming too. Innovative programmes are obviously designed to address some need, or to cater for an inadequate or absent approach. Necessity being the mother of invention. Once such a programme is produced, the cat is out of the bag, maybe people didn’t know before that they needed this programme, but they do now, so you have not only designed an effective programme but also an effective brief. And after you have spent time and money developing the solution, and you now intend to reap the reward, another unrecognisable but better programme is suddenly produced in the east and sold for less (they didn’t have to spend years figuring out what exactly was required from the product, you’ve market tested it for them). I already see this with Computer Aided Design software. Autodesk produces a new version with “fantastic” new features, fixing some of the frustrating bugs of a previous version they have been made aware of through client feedback which costs in itself, and suddenly Intelicad from Eastern Europe brings out the exact same product some weeks later but it costs €350 not €5,000.
What’s the gig? Are you going to keep on inventing? Can we really be hoping for and expecting a nation of Leonardos?

thebman

Niall Keane wrote: »

fergalr interesting points:



Computer Programming isn’t my field, architecture is, and right now the architectural profession is aiming along the same lines at going down the knowledge based economy route, i.e. developing innovative green design solutions and technologies, and also selling our expertise to developing economies.

But is this sustainable? Once you develop a new system straight away others can adopt and improve upon it, all they need to do is understand the driving principles behind the design solution. How do they do that, well they work on the project. (As much as posters here want to believe that schools and colleges create a knowledgeable workforce, they don’t they provide an elementary understanding of a field to their graduates, they enable a person to begin the real education - acquired by practicing in the field working on serious projects alongside the professions / industries heavyweights. I know that most of my old college tutors wouldn’t know where to begin on some of the clinical / technical projects I am involved with. They might know how to produce a pretty house extension, but don’t even know about the existence of specialist requirements for more technically demanding buildings. A guy who designs a kitchen extension is not going to come across negative air pressure requirements and corresponding spatial design considerations for clean areas in labs and hospitals, he is never going to consider designing an independent structure within a structure so a TV studio can be acoustically insulated from all frequencies. Such considerations are in effect outside of their universe. And guys who do know this because they are working in the field have not got the time to be tutoring down at the local university.)

So China got the experts - Arup, Foster etc.. to design their buildings. The projects were grand enough and given the budget to justify exploring innovative solutions, now China has these buildings, they can see how they perform, what works and what should be avoided. In fact we in the west are now visiting these buildings to benchmark and learn from them. We had the brains to conceptualise the design, but the practical knowledge now belongs to China. It is those Chinese junior engineers and architects who worked on the projects, and are now maintaining them who will have a true understanding and be able to improve upon the initial developments. So in 10 years time it won’t be Arup or Foster with the impressive portfolio it will be a company as yet unheard of in Shanghai or somewhere else in China.
I imagine this must occur in computer programming too. Innovative programmes are obviously designed to address some need, or to cater for an inadequate or absent approach. Necessity being the mother of invention. Once such a programme is produced, the cat is out of the bag, maybe people didn’t know before that they needed this programme, but they do now, so you have not only designed an effective programme but also an effective brief. And after you have spent time and money developing the solution, and you now intend to reap the reward, another unrecognisable but better programme is suddenly produced in the east and sold for less (they didn’t have to spend years figuring out what exactly was required from the product, you’ve market tested it for them). I already see this with Computer Aided Design software. Autodesk produces a new version with “fantastic” new features, fixing some of the frustrating bugs of a previous version they have been made aware of through client feedback which costs in itself, and suddenly Intelicad from Eastern Europe brings out the exact same product some weeks later but it costs €350 not €5,000.
What’s the gig? Are you going to keep on inventing? Can we really be hoping for and expecting a nation of Leonardos?

I'd say the main difference between computer programming and most other disciplines is the rate of change. In 6 months everything can change in computers and the cutting edge isn't the edge anymore and there is something new so I don't know if you can apply the same logic.

Peanut

I don't think the design theft issue is as big as people are making it out to be here.

As fergalr suggests, It's one thing ordering a copy of a product and trying to reverse engineer it, it's quite different to have the expertise to develop the product in the first place.

The first option leads to a sort of limbo area where having taken it apart and analysed it, you may have a reasonable idea of how the thing works, but lack the supporting tools and cumulative knowledge of the original developers/architects. These are resources which are necessary to develop future products, or even to support the existing product.

leninbenjamin

Niall Keane wrote: »

I imagine this must occur in computer programming too.

If this were the case then I think we'd all be running Chindows 3 by now. The Chinese government i believe have had access to the source for the last decade in order to facilitate their censorship.

It's one thing to implement the technology behind a piece of software. Often this is public domain and cannot be patented like you can a piece of machinery. The other is to have the presentation package, the UI, the support and experience in solving customer issues.

I heard a story from Intel before. They were paying one particular consultant/expert something in the region of €200,000. He was replaced by a team of 6 engineers from India paid a pittance. It cost the company millions apparently in delays.

There are similar experiences being felt in the gaming industry as well. Outsourcing coding and graphic design is becoming pretty common, but some companies are finding the potential savings are being dramatically eaten up by the communication barrier and excessive iterations are needed to get the outsourced component up to the standard required by the developing company.

There is also the famous story of the Fine Gael website. They outsourced the development (to someone in Eastern Europe i believe). What they got back was literally a copy and paste of the BBC website. I believe they had it completely redone in order to save face.