[OT] Re: South American Software Development

[John Devlin <jdevlin.lists@...>]

On 24 Jan 2008, at 12:57 , Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:

> Dr. Dobbs recently published an article about South American Software
> Development, with a part (Page 5 in 5) about Lua:
>
>  http://www.ddj.com/architect/205600791
>
> -- Roberto


Interesting article. I'd like to learn more about software development  
from the perspective of developers in other countries.

Three things caught my eye. One was the size and global reach of the  
South American software community:

"Nearly one professional developer in ten worldwide is working and  
living in South America ... IT spending [in Brazil] is growing at a  
double-digit rate. As an exporter of software, South America generally  
is a player and is growing at a double-digit rate. Outsourcing  
relationships with South American companies are already big business,  
and often a smart decision for North American companies. IDC  
identifies Latin America, which also includes Mexico and Central  
America, as having a pool of software developers essentially equal to  
Central and Eastern Europe, a region that many consider a hotbed of  
software talent... As South America increases in importance in global  
software, we can expect the region to offer new and expanded markets  
and a rich and savvy pool of programming talent. But the example of  
Lua points out that we could also see significant original software  
coming out of the region."

Another was the economic policies that helped create that pool of  
talent:

"'From 1977 until 1992, Brazil had a policy of strong trade barriers  
(called a 'market reserve') for computer hardware and software  
motivated by a nationalistic feeling that Brazil could and should  
produce its own hardware and software. In that atmosphere, [our]  
clients could not afford, either politically or financially, to buy  
customized software from abroad'... Like in 1987, when Brazil banned  
MS-DOS. Or when, in 2005, Brazil announced that it was switching  
300,000 government computers from Windows to open-source software like  
Linux, dropping all proprietary software ... Past protectionist  
policies in Brazil, now more or less abandoned, nevertheless led to  
today's self-supporting and well-educated community of knowledgeable  
software developers."

The third was an observation about the Brazilian software development  
community's purported 'rigid national boundaries':

"I referred to the relative isolation of South American programmers,  
and that needs explanation. It's primarily an issue of language and  
the scarcity of Spanish- or Portugese-language versions of commercial  
software and tools. But there are more subtle cultural factors at play  
here. A recent study on the use of online forums for software found  
that Brazilian programmers rarely join in global forum discussions,  
although they do mine them for solutions to problems. Not so, though,  
for Brazilian forums, which they participate in. The study concluded  
that 'foreign conversations are construed as asocial "sources of  
knowledge" while local forums are seen as spaces that bring together  
national or local communities of developers.' This suggests that the  
software development community has more rigid national boundaries than  
might be thought. This is interesting, because when we ask programmers  
what tools they have found that make them more productive, they  
frequently talk about using online discussion to tap the collective  
wisdom of the community of programmers to solve problems."

I was surprised to read that. Perhaps it's inaccurate?

--

John