The Curse of Being an Indian Software Developer

I have been thinking about this recently. Though, the same topic has haunted me for a few years since I had access to Google. As I said in my earlier blog that I (and my other colleagues) never had access to an online search tool like Google. Now-a-days, kid software developers can generate huge chunks of codes/programs in no time. Thanks to Google and their skills to search on Google!

But the fact remains a fact. I have come across a number of technical websites and blogs where an Indian technical writer or contributor is abused for one reason or the other. I tried to think a lot over this thing. Is it real?? whatever the abuser says ... how much of that is true... When you get into a loop of this kind, you are just lost.

Later on I realised that not everything that is said about Indian software developers is either wrong or 100% correct. But both sides have some correctness.

See for example the comment on an article by an Indian developer on CodeProject.com. If you are a .Net developer and you have been doing some programming, you will agree that the article could have been more elaborative and it lacks some basic things (as of 16 Mar'09). Though, none of us can still pass a judgment on whether the developer "Manoj Rajan" who has written the article is a good developer/programmer or a Googler. Is he really trying to make a point or is he just trying to gain some brownie points by publishing an article on CodeProject so he can share the link with some of his friends/colleagues and show the link in his appraisal sheet as a contribution to technical forums.

Well, as I said, I have no idea and no clear-cut answers to any of these questions. It's only his who could have responded in a well defined way to who-so-ever posted the comment. Since, Manoj failed to reply to the comment or improve the article content, it became an acceptance of abuse, which pains me more.

I am not saying though, that all articles which are written by Indians are abused. For example, see this one on using WinDbg tool by an Indian author. She has really explained it well and the comments that followed the article are great. Reading through such an article makes me feel happy and proud (not simply because I'm an Indian but because I am a fellow-programmer).

There can be other instances however, where even a good article got abused. See for example this one on using MdiChild in windows development. Even a fellow Indian s/w developer comes and abuses. How sad. that too for a well explained article. Since the author was a C'pian (Code-projectian) and her husband is a big shot in code-project, the elaborate comment got deleted. (I had read the full comment earlier).

My whole point is this:

• If you are software developer from any part of the world, do not just depend upon Google. Have some know-how to explain things to people when needed. Writing a technical article demands certain basic skills to explain the underlying concepts or to troubleshoot the problems generated from your own code or to help other developers improve/improvise your code to suit their needs.
• Do not ever abuse any software programmer. If you think there is some problem with the article, let the author know what the article lacks by providing the author a positive comment or better still (if you are a developer yourself), by writing a technical article yourself on the same set of topics or a related post.
• Read ..read ....read ...and read more ..... It's the habit of reading that makes you understand more. Read as much of technical stuff as you can for your own understanding.
• Do not fake certifications. I have seen people writing articles on technical blogs, with signatures of MCTS/MCAD/MCSD, but the article did not go well with the explanations sought from the article's comments. So have a certification only when you are fully prepared. I remember, I scored 708 marks in my first certification that I had taken. While many other guys actually scored more than 950 or so.

Let me know what you think!!!