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Comment by smoyer | Hacker News Reader

I too have experienced bad Indian coding ... as well as bad US coding, bad European coding, etc. I've experienced good coding from all those places too. I think the biggest issue with Indian coding is that it's predominately out-sourced and thus very hard to make sure the out-sourcing agency's business needs are aligned with your own.

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I believe as they say, 10 apprentices does not equal 1 master. When you work with any outsourcing company they have people of all skill working on the project. You will get their best masters at first, but at some point the "b" team will be brought in and you will start seeing bad code.

I think this must be somewhat the nature of hiring contract workers because I have seen it again and again coming from all counties, as well as within the US.

Really, you think the biggest issue is that the project specs are always too vague?

You can't write a specification that's completely unambiguous, combined with the fact that the agencies bill by the hour which creates an incentive for the agency (and their contractors) produce work products that meet the specification but that any logical programmer would avoid. This includes producing volumes of repetitive (and copied) code instead of careful refactoring, so not only does it cost more to get a functional product, but that product is far less maintainable.

You lost me.

Don't ask ME for a clear spec ;)

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