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Agony of an African programmer

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Re: Agony of an African programmer

#121

Post by kisielk »

chestnut-tree wrote: post #17

The patchy and expensive internet access that many people around the world experience really emphasises the importance of offline or native apps. There's a relentless (and in my view unnecesary) push by many technology companies to run everything online as if it's some natural progression we should all be moving towards. Some of us, even with broadband access, don't want to run apps in the cloud, (where everything we…

I'm living in Malawi for a couple of a months and I totally agree the cloud features and automatic software updates on my computer have become a huge nuisance. Often the internet connection is slow (even on Skyband EVDO) and automatic updaters or cloud sync can easily suck up all my bandwidth.

Sometimes I find my internet totally sucking only to find out there's some app like iCloud photo sync trying to download some photos from one of my contact's streams. Or at one point Mac OS decided to download a sizeable XCode update in the background.

These features are a big convenience back in Canada, but really frustrating when travelling and using slow connections. I really wish there was one setting somewhere to turn off all background syncing and downloading.

So far the best solution I've found is to install Little Snitch and just manually approve connections.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#122

Post by mtct »

V-2 wrote: post #108
mtct wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in C#, sometime javascript if needed. For a small IT consulting firm.

Where in Italy? My girlfriend studies Italian and we might move to Italy for a year or two, hence I'm curious. Significant differences in terms of salary?

A medium city in north Italy. There are significant differences in terms of salary and HUGE differences in term of jobs availability and cost of living.

Some planning is needed if you want to a nice living.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#123

Post by ekwogefee »

vanderZwan wrote: post #119
ekwogefee wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shameless plug... I'm African. Cameroonian to be more precise. I grew frustrated with slow download speeds over the "cloud" and the recent obsession over "syncing". I personally prefer normal file transfers over syncing. I created my own tool that does file and folder transfers over a LAN... without Internet. My solution is P2P (no servers), has faster download speeds compared to the Internet, can work even with ad-h…

I guess the ehm... how to put it nicely... "Eurocentricness" (?) of the screenshots are a deliberate choice and a real life example of the things you have to put up with as an African programmer?

Exactly. The "Eurocentricness" of my screenshots is a deliberate choice. I try to hide that I'm African as much as I can. I prefer email support over voice so that our users and customers don't have to deal with my heavy west african accent. Paypal is also blocked in my country (Cameroon), but I've succeeded to get an account set up for me in Europe. Why go through all of that trouble ? I believe the best path for an African entrepreneur is to build something that can compete and be sold at a global level. Right now, 73% of our users are in the USA.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#124

Post by V-2 »

mtct wrote: post #122
V-2 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in Italy? My girlfriend studies Italian and we might move to Italy for a year or two, hence I'm curious. Significant differences in terms of salary?

A medium city in north Italy. There are significant differences in terms of salary and HUGE differences in term of jobs availability and cost of living. Some planning is needed if you want to a nice living.

I thought about the north for sure - maybe Genova or Milano

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#125

Post by disputin »

graemian wrote: post #78

Get out of Africa. Africa will steal your life. If you choose to stay in Africa and have your potential limited by silly things like bad Internet and no electricity, then make that choice consciously, and for good reasons, like wanting to be near family. If you stay because you feel some deeper connection to Africa because you were born there, get over it. Get out of your comfort zone, live your own life. Consider ca…

You have a point regarding electricity - South Africa was having rolling blackouts a few years back, not sure what the state is now.

One thing to consider is that it might be easier to grow into a big fish in a small pond than in a big pond. I've seen people in small pond countries grow into big fish then move to a bigger pond with their big fish credentials. Whereas when a small fish moves from small pond to a big pond, with only small fish credentials, it becomes food, forever battling it's way nowhere. Not always, of course.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#126

Post by buyx »

lgleason wrote: post #62
atmosx wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if creating the environment is enough. The thing that valley has and you can't find around is investors: From seed money to angels. Every region has 2 or 3 but that's about it. The culture is different and you can't change that overnight. Not to mention that Europeans are way more skeptical/prudent when it comes investments anyway compared to USA.

I volunteered at a Startup Weekend in Johannesburg last year and do agree with this statement. With that being said I do think that the investors or starting to get more tech savvy. My family on my fiancee's side is from South Africa and I regularly travel back and forth between South Africa and the US. Whenever I'm there I try to line the trips up with tech conferences and/or local meetup groups. South Africa has a…

South Africa has serious structural issues preventing a tech revolution: a rotten school system, a welfare-based economy with a tiny tax base, that is dependent on credit-driven consumer demand rather than production, underinvestment in infrastructure, and government with a huge mandate, that is too timid/rent-seeking to change things (heaven help us if our Proportional Representation system fragments into something like those of Israel or Italy), big business that has a long tradition of collusion and price-fixing, a white minority that is hell-bent on maintaining the status quo, and a union movement that cripples job creation. Previously, South Africa was a resource-driven economy - there are limited traditions of entrepreneurship.

The chances are good that the African startup revolution, if it comes, won't start in South Africa.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#127

Post by graemian »

wobbleblob wrote: post #115
graemian wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! You're more likely to fail for reasons beyond your control (like no electricity, bad Internet) in African than in San Francisco. But those things ARE actually under your control. Just move to San Francisco :-)

Spoken like someone who has never lived or worked abroad, and n ever met anyone who has. You can't just move to another country and expect people to let you in.

FYI: I've lived in San Francisco for 1.5 months, and I've met plenty people who have lived and worked abroad.

I'm not sure what your point is.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#128

Post by graemian »

kamaal wrote: post #101
graemian wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was born in Africa and I'm trying to get out right now. It's not easy, but it's not impossible. I didn't get as good a deal in the birthplace lottery as Steve Jobs and others born in Silicon Valley, but I'll be damned if I'll use that as an excuse for a life of mediocrity. Frankly, if the factors you describe are really what's stopping you from reaching your goals, you're likely to fail anyway.

>>Frankly, if the factors you describe are really what's stopping you from reaching your goals, you're likely to fail anyway. A very narrow perspective of the world. Though I hope not, but some day if you fail for reasons beyond your control despite your best efforts may be you will see for yourself why not all failure happens due to a individual's short comings. The world is full of examples of people who work heroi…

> The world is full of examples of people who work heroically only to meet chronic failure.

I'll bet that a large percentage of those people worked in Africa

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#129

Post by graemian »

disputin wrote: post #125
graemian wrote: post #78

Get out of Africa. Africa will steal your life. If you choose to stay in Africa and have your potential limited by silly things like bad Internet and no electricity, then make that choice consciously, and for good reasons, like wanting to be near family. If you stay because you feel some deeper connection to Africa because you were born there, get over it. Get out of your comfort zone, live your own life. Consider ca…

You have a point regarding electricity - South Africa was having rolling blackouts a few years back, not sure what the state is now. One thing to consider is that it might be easier to grow into a big fish in a small pond than in a big pond. I've seen people in small pond countries grow into big fish then move to a bigger pond with their big fish credentials. Whereas when a small fish moves from small pond to a big p…

Interesting conjecture. I would like to see if there's any hard data to support that.

Re: Agony of an African programmer

#130

Post by graemian »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #116
graemian wrote: post #78

Get out of Africa. Africa will steal your life. If you choose to stay in Africa and have your potential limited by silly things like bad Internet and no electricity, then make that choice consciously, and for good reasons, like wanting to be near family. If you stay because you feel some deeper connection to Africa because you were born there, get over it. Get out of your comfort zone, live your own life. Consider ca…

That would be a mistake. Economically speaking, Africa is one of the last place on earth that is widely underdeveloped and has huge economy wide upside potential. If you ask me, winds are blowing the right way for Africa. It's a good time to be there.

Maybe if you want to sell commodity stuff (furniture or cars or beer), but not for innovation. How many ground-breaking tech things have emerged from Africa? Very few. And that's unlikely to change any time soon.
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