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Europe's Software Problem

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Re: Europe's Software Problem

#361

Post by kazen44 »

zeruch wrote: post #305
bildung wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order to be innovative and compete, we need very flexible working laws, people with a big growth mindset, a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people. And yet Silicon Valley lies in one of the states with the most employee friendly regulation in the US wrt worker protection, paid overtime etc.: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/Bes...

Yes, but how you interpret "employee friendly" matters. Case in point, California is an "at will" employer, which depending on how you want to leverage it, can be seen as employee friendly or employer friendly.

from a social democratic perspective, it just means your employer has eroted your rights of a stable living and extracted even more value from you through pressure.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#362

Post by kazen44 »

pfortuny wrote: post #311
dgb23 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed that it was the other way around. Can you point me to further reading?

Philips, siemens, bosch, just three.

also, many small companies which are world market leader in a very tiny and specific thing.

For instance, there is a company in germany which is able to produce very high quality lead sheeting to a unusual size, which allowed mythbusters to create a lead balloon.

No company in the US was able to achieve this thickness.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h70kbIzPgig

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#363

Post by gizmondo »

Nursie wrote: post #334
grishka wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You didn't read my comment fully. Companies already support app versions that are years old, for various reasons — the most obvious one being that many people use older devices that run an OS that's no longer supported by the app in question, and others just don't ever update anything. So since they're already doing this right now, and have been doing this since forever, there's literally zero additional work inv…

> Companies already support app versions that are years old Some do, agile startups tend not to. > Besides, no one is asking them to "deliver new functionality at a rapid pace" And your proposed legislation would ensure that they cannot. > It's fine for a product to be done. It's fine to stop. It's fine to go into maintenance mode. It's not fine for this to be the law.

> It's not fine for this to be the law.

This law sounds silly and counter-productive enough for EU to actually implement it!

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#364

Post by jltsiren »

wyager wrote: post #211
selfhoster11 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order to be innovative and compete, we need very flexible working laws, people with a big growth mindset, a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people. The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1% and the indispensable knowledge worker class that can't be automated away or juiced dry for all the productivity they are capa…

> a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1% The median American is much richer than the median European.

Statements like this are ambiguous, because "European" can mean many different things. Over 40% of Europeans live in former communist states, so the median European in the literal sense does not tell much about the standard of living in the traditional first-world European countries.

I did a comparison between Finland and the US some time ago. My conclusion was that the median households were about as wealthy in both countries, but the average household was 3x wealthier in the US. The biggest caveat was that household wealth includes retirement savings but not pensions, making the median Finn wealthier than the median American. I estimated that the crossover point for the standard of living was somewhere around the 80th percentile, depending on things such as local costs of living and whether you have kids or not.

After a few years in America, nominal salaries seem low in Finland. On the other hand, Finns have fewer major expenses. Their out-of-pocket costs for education, childcare, and healthcare are much lower. The concept of an emergency fund does not really exist in Finland, largely thanks to income-dependent benefits. Pension contributions are mostly paid by the employer on top of the nominal salary, making saving for retirement much less important.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#365

Post by bandris »

mmarq wrote: post #355
kaba0 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. You do realize that people don’t just relocate to another country let alone to another continent, especially when the benefits are questionable at best. Somewhat more pay, but for more expenses due to a ridiculous health-care, depending on location, it may very well be less safe, etc.

You may disagree, but “nonsense” sounds a bit excessive. An Italian or Spanish software developer earning 30K euros per annum would likely go to the US if they were offered an American salary. Many of those who went to the UK or to Germany (me included) would have crossed the Atlantic for the right offer.

I agree with you that inexperienced (lower paid) or young developers might find the US attractive if there weren't visa issues. The older better paid ones, maybe with families even, would probably still choose the social safety of Europe, the mix of people and ideas, the density of interesting places, cultural events, etc.

I mainly reflected on the current trend I observered. Did not consider a sudden change in the US visa policy.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#366

Post by kazen44 »

mnouquet wrote: post #341
hef19898 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A plumber needs formal education, at least in Germany. Three years of it, to be exact. And then some more to run his own shop. Also, 100 an hour sounds great. That is without taken taxes, social security, operational costs, fix costs an so into account. Those plumbers getting wealthy are running their own shops, small legit enterprises. Final note: Any decent developer job I know of pays at least 3k, net, after taxes…

> A plumber needs formal education, at least in Germany. Three years of it, to be exact. And then some more to run his own shop. Here's Europe's problem. The same way you don't need 5+ years university education to put together whatever piece of hardware / software together, the same way I don't need studying hydraulic to put together hydraulic implements.

mind you the german education system is very different from the US/English one.

Germany (and many other european countries) has the idea of a trade school, in which one learns a trade. Usually these are combined with working experience in the form of apprenticeships. In my experience, continental europe has far more emphasis on early work experience compared to ango-saxon countries. An internship usually lasts a couple of years, people get payed a wage for the work they do and it is combined with schooling.

A plumber would be a prime example of the vocation which is using this kind of system.

people finish secondary education at an earlier age then in the US (16 or even 15 in some cases), then they transfer into tertiary education in a fachschule.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#367

Post by davidkunz »

jiofih wrote: post #59
davidkunz wrote: post #8

>> typical clunky open source software What?

You don’t agree? A more substantial comment would be informative. Can you give us one example of a stellar open source UI you use daily?

I'm more of a terminal guy and don't care so much about a "stellar open source UI", but one example is the Gnome Desktop Environment, it's very polished.

Today, the world runs on open source, so we shouldn't call it "clunky".

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#368

Post by kazen44 »

cletus wrote: post #322
MisterPea wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is that India (which has many languages throughout the country) pretty much adopted English as the de facto business language. Are EU countries not the same? Genuinely don't know how English is perceived in these countries. Although this is probably much easier for India since it is one country.

The status of English is... complicated. So all the languages of EU members are officially recognized. This has become increasingly unwieldy as you need translators in the EU Parliament for every combination and there probably aren't that many people who can translate Portugese to Estonian, for example. There have been proposals over time to instead translate into a particular language. This has been resisted heavily…

> English really is the lingua franca at this point.

a good thing to point out is that Continental Europeans seem to talk a slightly different english compared to americans and the british.

Usually more direct, with less complex vocabulary etc.

I wonder how long it will take for this to become somewhat standardized. especially now that britain has left the EU.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#369

Post by kazen44 »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #310
pwthornton wrote: post #193

Some of the stuff in this article may be fine, and trying to raise money is certainly harder in Europe, but I thought one of the biggest drags on Europe's tech industry is poor pay for engineers and other tech talent? In the U.S., going into a tech career can be one of the best ways to make a high salary quickly -- especially without needing an advanced degree. Without this incentive, you'll have a lot less people pu…

The reason US developers are paid more is because US startups are much more successful. As to why they are so much more successful is a different question.

Also, the US dollar being the defacto reserve currency and it currently being incredibly cheap helps quite a lot. The US is basically the only country being able to borrow directly against natural resources (which it has plenty off, especially compared to the EU).

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#370

Post by sam_lowry_ »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #270
raverbashing wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need to hire german speaking people and that means opening a Sales Office in Germany No you don't need that. You can have your German speaking people move to Italy and work from there. That's the whole point of the EU. The same for VAT, you can register in one country and have that sent to multiple countries according to your sales. No presence needed

That's certainly an option, but moving to a different nation is a lot to ask for an employee. Despite both countries being in the EU it's still a massive change on an individual level.

Yeah, Just imagine sending kids to a school in a totally different language.
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