Open Comments Thread for "The Global Development Interview Series: Saudi Arabia, With Turki Al-Aseeri"

Daniel,

I'm really enjoying your series of interviews. So much has been said about offshore outsourcing and it's nice to see another viewpoint. Software developers really do share common languages and personal goals. It's nice to get a glimpse of humanity beyond my southeastern US pond.

I totally agree! Our managers in some cases want us to take out our anger on dem offshore programmers but Dan shows how they are our brothers and sisters.

He also knows how to create an elegant Web site which uses color and layout effectively and puts important information at your finger tips.

If Dan's site doesn't get the Jolt award, the awards are rigged.

I'm glad to hear that others have enjoyed these interviews. These developers around the world are indeed our brothers and sisters. I'm looking forward to doing more interviews, and will soon start soliciting interviewees.

[quote="Edward Nilges"]If Dan's site doesn't get the Jolt award, the awards are rigged.[/quote]

:-) While I very much appreciate the sentiment, Edward, I must gently protest in two regards: one, I do not consider developer.* "Dan's site". I like to think of it as belonging, conceptually at least, to all of the brilliant people who contribute to both the magazine and Cooperative Digest. And two, I am on honored that developer.* is simply nominated for a Jolt. The competition in this "Websites and Developer Networks" category is such that I would not be offended if *any* of the other worthy competitors were to win. That said, I'm flying out to Santa Clara for the ceremony on the 16th, so I'm definitely hoping to come home with something. ;-)

Dan

...if I can arrange any interviews with my homeboys out here in China. We will need to be careful, for the government here discourages "blogging", at least in Putonghua.

Every day, I read more and more about a reverse offshore flow. There was my experience in December 2003: I got a call from China saying they wanted me to work out here. Then, the New York Times Magazine, in spring 2004, published an article about a New Yorker working in Hyderbad.

Last week, an Economist article described how many European telemarketers are being hired to work at call centers in India. They aren't taking jobs away from the homeys in India because IN A SENSE India has full employment. That is, there are millions of Indians without the educational capital to be trainable in a realistic time frame to speak not only English with the proper accent who instead benefit from the creation of "lower level" (but absolutely needed) jobs in the new Indian metropolis, such as sweeping the streets so everybody doesn't get cholera and slinging, if not hash, then curry and beans, at the office workers at noon.

Therefore, to staff up rapidly, the Indian company pays the airfare of young British men and women, and other Europeans (Americans don't seem to be in on the deal as described). They make India wages but pay India prices, just like I do in China. They get the Grand Tour of the mysterious East like trust fund hippies and everybody's happy.

I always thought that offshoring had a silver lining. Furthermore, when in California, I was repelled by an anti-offshore guy who later was profiled in Wired. He seemed to be permanently angry and obsessed with the idea that the jobs somehow "belonged" to people in Santa Clara County.

Offshoring is the only thing I agreed with in the Republican platform.

This is because a "job" is not a simple economic good, like food and shelter. It is instead complex and second-order because at a "job", well, they expect you to "work" (ai-ya!).

A "job" is relational and it is about your relation to the tools of production, usually in the case of us geeks, that aging platform in front of you.

As such, offshoring is not a simple taking of something you need. It is instead part of a vast process. Inside of any silver lining, there's a dark cloud, but as far as I can tell, the storm always breaks upon the Wretched of the Earth: people without the cultural capital that programmers have by necessity.

Therefore I reserve my liberalism for the hash and curry slingers, the street sweepers, and the guys in front of my building who are (using wheelbarrows and hods I last saw in America circa 1970) building an office tower in record time. Not for the people who coded the code I maintained at Nortel. Not in the slightest.

Hi Daniel,

I just came upon developer.* yesterday via Jack Reeves' essays, and it looks really worthwhile! I do like the idea of this series, but I must also say that the two interviews so far are conducted pretty schematically and you miss interesting opportunities as a consequence. For instance, Turki says: "...the educational process is really stupid! I'm sure that Arabs who read this know what I mean." Well, but *I* am not an Arab and I have no *clue* what he means! Probably I wouldn't have done any better, but in your shoes I'd hook up with an experienced interviewer before doing the next one. Anyway, thanks for doing it at all!