Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 141 posts

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#21

Post by usaphp »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #9

IMHO the big cultural difference between the sub continent and the US is an emphasis on a particular notion of being “practical” over what I would call a particular notion of being “smart.” I assume you are familiar with the particular notion of being smart. You are quick to think of solutions, the solutions are supposed to be novel, you have particular cultural knowledge, detailed opinions and a nerd sense of humor.…

> they’re still using JAVA or PHP because it works.

Or probably because that’s what western counties pay for

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#22

Post by teknologist »

40acres wrote: post #6

I'm really interested in hearing more about this, especially when it comes to software development in cities like Beijing and Shenzen. The stories make it seem like China's developer culture is really harsh, almost absurd in the intensity level and hours worked. Another question is regarding the economic position of developers, here in the US it seems like a path way to a solid upper middle class existence, is it the…

I've heard about a well-known tech startup in China called "Pinduoduo" where the standard hours for devs at their office are from 11am-midnight on weekdays and I believe most of them work a day each weekend too. It's fairly common for small tech companies to operate like this

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#23

Post by sayno3 »

Here in the US, you will here a lot about 'culture fit' which is really just an encoded way of passing off nepotism and personal bias in the hiring process. The only difficult part of a job is learning which overwrought security nightmare they are using as a 'technology stack' to make the job so easy anyone could do it but all the cute buzzwords sound cool. Groupthink and correct answers to political questions are much more important than the 2 hours of actual coding per week the job will even require. Features trump safety (move fast, break people), hence an utter lack of security for any user in the world. Oh, and people in the US really are consumed by ethnocentrism ;)

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#24

Post by abhinai »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #9

IMHO the big cultural difference between the sub continent and the US is an emphasis on a particular notion of being “practical” over what I would call a particular notion of being “smart.” I assume you are familiar with the particular notion of being smart. You are quick to think of solutions, the solutions are supposed to be novel, you have particular cultural knowledge, detailed opinions and a nerd sense of humor.…

I am not sure if Java is any more practical than say Node.js or Python.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#25

Post by delinka »

abhinai wrote: post #24
startupdiscuss wrote: post #9

IMHO the big cultural difference between the sub continent and the US is an emphasis on a particular notion of being “practical” over what I would call a particular notion of being “smart.” I assume you are familiar with the particular notion of being smart. You are quick to think of solutions, the solutions are supposed to be novel, you have particular cultural knowledge, detailed opinions and a nerd sense of humor.…

I am not sure if Java is any more practical than say Node.js or Python.

I think it's more that existing projects are in Java, so I have experience in Java, Java works, so why learn something else? Just start the next project in Java and it'll just work.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#26

Post by gregimba »

40acres wrote: post #10
vidanay wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only question I have about this is _who is doing the thinking part of their coding_? Someone has to be working just a furiously architecting and concepting for all these programmers hammering out code for 14-16 hour days.

Another question is regarding open source tools, maybe it's a US bubble but I don't think I've heard of any Western companies adoping Chinese open source tools.

Harbor was originally made by VMWare China, thats one of the few open source tools I know of.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#27

Post by gregmac »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #9

IMHO the big cultural difference between the sub continent and the US is an emphasis on a particular notion of being “practical” over what I would call a particular notion of being “smart.” I assume you are familiar with the particular notion of being smart. You are quick to think of solutions, the solutions are supposed to be novel, you have particular cultural knowledge, detailed opinions and a nerd sense of humor.…

How does this relate to maintenance?

Whether code is practical or not is not a black and white issue, and a solution that "works" today - meets all specs, generally bug-free - doesn't mean it's maintainable. In fact, most of the code I've dealt with from people who basically only value the metric of "does it work?" completely fails at being maintainable.

What I mean by this is as soon as you start trying to add/change features, you quicky run into bad design and have rewrite huge chunks to get the new stuff to fit, end up playing whack-a-mole with endless bugs, or both. Sometimes you can hack on a fix with duct tape, but that only delays an even bigger rewrite or more bugs later.

I've run into this with mostly "job shop" places, both in North America and offshore, so perhaps the problem is the nature of that business more than the culture, but the mentality seems to align with your description of practicality.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#28

Post by teknologist »

vidanay wrote: post #7
40acres wrote: post #6

I'm really interested in hearing more about this, especially when it comes to software development in cities like Beijing and Shenzen. The stories make it seem like China's developer culture is really harsh, almost absurd in the intensity level and hours worked. Another question is regarding the economic position of developers, here in the US it seems like a path way to a solid upper middle class existence, is it the…

The only question I have about this is _who is doing the thinking part of their coding_? Someone has to be working just a furiously architecting and concepting for all these programmers hammering out code for 14-16 hour days.

There are tech/team leads to do it, but their approach is different. Tried-and-true solutions are picked out from what's already been built at the company, and that cuts down on time consuming brainstorming and planning phases and the debates between devs and product managers. It's in some ways more conservative than what we see in the West with more copy and pasted byproducts of the planning process

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#29

Post by abhinai »

delinka wrote: post #25
abhinai wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if Java is any more practical than say Node.js or Python.

I think it's more that existing projects are in Java, so I have experience in Java, Java works, so why learn something else? Just start the next project in Java and it'll just work.

That would imply that the world moved from Java to Node.js / Go / Python just because they are cool new technologies.

Re: Ask HN: How is software development different in China and India?

#30

Post by fouc »

teknologist wrote: post #22
40acres wrote: post #6

I'm really interested in hearing more about this, especially when it comes to software development in cities like Beijing and Shenzen. The stories make it seem like China's developer culture is really harsh, almost absurd in the intensity level and hours worked. Another question is regarding the economic position of developers, here in the US it seems like a path way to a solid upper middle class existence, is it the…

I've heard about a well-known tech startup in China called "Pinduoduo" where the standard hours for devs at their office are from 11am-midnight on weekdays and I believe most of them work a day each weekend too. It's fairly common for small tech companies to operate like this

I wonder if they picked that schedule in order to reduce rush hour/commute time.
Post reply on HN