Who are the polite Indians?
22 comments
Most "CS" students in India don't go to engineering schools because they like it. They take up CS because that's the most lucrative career option right now.
The competition is cut throat to get into major IT companies (GPA of 3.75 or higher is required by most "Grade A" companies just to take the preliminary written tests.)
Unfortunately, most of the companies value grades and how "consistent" you have been through school, going all the way back to 10th grade. (I'm looking at you Infosys. I should write up my own interview experience with them :)
As long as they get their grades, the students are least bothered about how they got it.
Given this pressure, one can hardly expect 18-21 year olds to be cognizant of how rest of the world perceives them. What matters to them is their social circle and family priorities. If it means asking 100 people to bump up the grade, so be it.
The competition is cut throat to get into major IT companies (GPA of 3.75 or higher is required by most "Grade A" companies just to take the preliminary written tests.)
Unfortunately, most of the companies value grades and how "consistent" you have been through school, going all the way back to 10th grade. (I'm looking at you Infosys. I should write up my own interview experience with them :)
As long as they get their grades, the students are least bothered about how they got it.
Given this pressure, one can hardly expect 18-21 year olds to be cognizant of how rest of the world perceives them. What matters to them is their social circle and family priorities. If it means asking 100 people to bump up the grade, so be it.
I think a lot of what you say is the correct. I'll just add to that.
Most of these "polite Indians" are college students from not-so good colleges (or bad students at good colleges). They are studying Engineering just because of parental/peer pressure. I'm sure every Indian would know more than 3-4 friends who are studying just to make somebody else proud.
Each semester, these students have some courses with assignments. The first thing they do is "Google" the assignment. If they don't find the solutions on the front page of Google, they either raid forums (including comment sections of blogs) asking for help or else they contact a small coding shop and "outsource" their assignments. These coding shops are small shops that charge extremely low rates too, so they don't have the best programmers either. Quite often coding shop employees raid the web for help too. A friend of mine has actually hired 3-4 "sub-standard" coders proceeds of which he uses to bootstrap his main startup.
Unfortunately, in this storm sometimes even genuine students who just wish to learn get crowded out. My suggestion (and what I do generally) is to answer people as long as it is just about concepts. If you start doing somebody else's homework the whole batch might start asking you for help. So, my advice is just don't do anybody's homework.
Most of these "polite Indians" are college students from not-so good colleges (or bad students at good colleges). They are studying Engineering just because of parental/peer pressure. I'm sure every Indian would know more than 3-4 friends who are studying just to make somebody else proud.
Each semester, these students have some courses with assignments. The first thing they do is "Google" the assignment. If they don't find the solutions on the front page of Google, they either raid forums (including comment sections of blogs) asking for help or else they contact a small coding shop and "outsource" their assignments. These coding shops are small shops that charge extremely low rates too, so they don't have the best programmers either. Quite often coding shop employees raid the web for help too. A friend of mine has actually hired 3-4 "sub-standard" coders proceeds of which he uses to bootstrap his main startup.
Unfortunately, in this storm sometimes even genuine students who just wish to learn get crowded out. My suggestion (and what I do generally) is to answer people as long as it is just about concepts. If you start doing somebody else's homework the whole batch might start asking you for help. So, my advice is just don't do anybody's homework.
I try to help people to help themselves. At some point I have to give up. For example: http://imgur.com/qdV0B.png
There's an occasionally inappropriate photoshop meme for this phenomenon. "High Expectations Asian Father" plays on the achievement-oriented bootstrappers' world-view often ascribed to first-generation immigrant parents.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/high-expectations-asian-father
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/high-expectations-asian-father
I came across very interesting blog check out
"indian software giants misleading talent in india"
http://www.dkoustubha.com/indian-software-giants-misleading-...
"indian software giants misleading talent in india"
http://www.dkoustubha.com/indian-software-giants-misleading-...
Most of the students in India lack basic problem solving skills. They tackle exams (even maths) by rote memorizing a set of questions and answers. In real life this has caused profusion of "guides" i.e. books that contain questions most likely to appear in exams.
When these students start engineering studies, they are flabbergasted by lack of "guides" for problems. These students will fail the FizzBuzz test, however will be able to answer questions about C++ quirks. They can not ask intelligent questions because they can neither understand problem nor investigate the root cause. They are studying just to get a degree (which would help them get a job) not to get educated.
Even if we assume that only 50% of the students fit this criteria, there are over five hundred thousand students who are looking for shortcuts! Which should account for these kind of posts.
The education system in India is geared towards producing clerks not free thinking individuals. Sadly, this the is the end result.
When these students start engineering studies, they are flabbergasted by lack of "guides" for problems. These students will fail the FizzBuzz test, however will be able to answer questions about C++ quirks. They can not ask intelligent questions because they can neither understand problem nor investigate the root cause. They are studying just to get a degree (which would help them get a job) not to get educated.
Even if we assume that only 50% of the students fit this criteria, there are over five hundred thousand students who are looking for shortcuts! Which should account for these kind of posts.
The education system in India is geared towards producing clerks not free thinking individuals. Sadly, this the is the end result.
>>The education system in India is geared towards producing clerks not free thinking individuals.
When I was in school, I was always told by my teachers to memorize the solution/essay rather than understand them. And whenever I tried to answer a question using my own words I always got less marks because my answer was not as per what's in the book
When I was in school, I was always told by my teachers to memorize the solution/essay rather than understand them. And whenever I tried to answer a question using my own words I always got less marks because my answer was not as per what's in the book
I studied in a Kendriya Vidyalaya (Government run centralized schools), and it's been my impression that the CBSE board in geared towards problem solving rather than rote learning.
Recently they introduced a new type of question in their exams, which are called High Order Thinking questions. They tend to test the knowledge and problem solving skills of an individual.
But yes, most of the state boards, do put much more emphasis on rote learning
Recently they introduced a new type of question in their exams, which are called High Order Thinking questions. They tend to test the knowledge and problem solving skills of an individual.
But yes, most of the state boards, do put much more emphasis on rote learning
Really? So did I. But without digressing, I felt that KV syllabus was based more on problem solving. Either that or I had been lucky enough to get teachers who encouraged open thinking rather than hitting the books to pointless memorising. Having said that the unit tests - monthly tests - were administered by the teacher for a particular class and what we had found was that some teachers were notorious for ensuring answers matched word-by-word to what was in the guides!
But this was about 18 years ago so things may have changed (unfortunately for the worse) by now, especially to cater for a spike in demand for outsourcing.
But this was about 18 years ago so things may have changed (unfortunately for the worse) by now, especially to cater for a spike in demand for outsourcing.
Exactly. At least in Pakistan, a huge part of this problem is the insane emphasis of teaching everything in English, even though the people do not really understand English.
Imagine going through 10-12 years of schooling in Spanish, where instead of making an effort to teach you to conversate in Spanish, you just memorize the words in the book with little emphasis on what they mean?
Crazy!! It's like no-child-left-behind times 100.
Imagine going through 10-12 years of schooling in Spanish, where instead of making an effort to teach you to conversate in Spanish, you just memorize the words in the book with little emphasis on what they mean?
Crazy!! It's like no-child-left-behind times 100.
There's an chapter in "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynmann" about something similar. Students in Brazil achieved fantastic marks in exams, but were unable to translate memorized formulas to practical use.
The chapter is online here http://randomgraphs.blogspot.com/2009/06/feynman-on-educatio...
The chapter is online here http://randomgraphs.blogspot.com/2009/06/feynman-on-educatio...
Most of the students in my engineering and CS dept in the US learned by rote memorization.
I agree. I wrote about this too: http://utkarshsengar.com/2010/01/indian-republic-day-where-t...
These students will fail the FizzBuzz test
Nah, there are guides for that.
Nah, there are guides for that.
> however will be able to answer questions about C++ quirks
Turbo C++ quirks. :)
(edit: not sure why I was modded down. Anyone who's gone through the system in India knows that most colleges are still stuck in 1992 and use an ancient version of Turbo C++ for everything.)
Turbo C++ quirks. :)
(edit: not sure why I was modded down. Anyone who's gone through the system in India knows that most colleges are still stuck in 1992 and use an ancient version of Turbo C++ for everything.)
I'm indian american, and honestly don't have many indian or indian american friends (just never found many in the social circles I like). But I have a few fun stories:
1) Someone in another group hired some fresh-out-grad-school Indians, and a few months ago I was bored and googled their names. One of them was asking for code for some algorithm on a java forum. I didn't care much about it, I was more impressed that the guy used his full name on the forum. I realized though that indians have a bigger problem with not fully sharing the problem they're trying to solve, and just come off as asking for random things instead.
2) I had to work with a big name customer who hired two foreign university kids trying to leverage an API I wrote. On a call they demanded source code for everything the API supplied in order to write their app (they didn't need it all), and constantly emailed me about questions reading a industry-wide spec would've answered. Luckily they eventually stopped working there and my email got a lot easier.
3) I tried to hire a contractor recently, and after struggling with agencies, I decided to give craigslist a try. I'm going to write a blog post about this one day, but basically 75% of the names I received were of south asian descent. Nothing wrong with that, I read every one of those emails. The problem is that of that 75%, half of those were outsourcing "$9 / hour" agencies, and a good portion of the other half didn't have experience relevant to the position.
Big lesson learned with 3. As an indian american, I gotta really step up my networking skills in order to find other positions. If I want to apply for a position over the internet, I ABSOLUTELY must do things to stand out from the piles of emails. I already take time to write personalized cover letters, but have to have a non-standard title to stick out, and have some internet presence for them to feel comfortable with me.
Make no racial generalizations though. I've met indian folks out there that are truly amazing geeks, and can comfortably talk to you about lisp / clojure / rethinkdb / etc. I last met one in an IRS office of all places.
1) Someone in another group hired some fresh-out-grad-school Indians, and a few months ago I was bored and googled their names. One of them was asking for code for some algorithm on a java forum. I didn't care much about it, I was more impressed that the guy used his full name on the forum. I realized though that indians have a bigger problem with not fully sharing the problem they're trying to solve, and just come off as asking for random things instead.
2) I had to work with a big name customer who hired two foreign university kids trying to leverage an API I wrote. On a call they demanded source code for everything the API supplied in order to write their app (they didn't need it all), and constantly emailed me about questions reading a industry-wide spec would've answered. Luckily they eventually stopped working there and my email got a lot easier.
3) I tried to hire a contractor recently, and after struggling with agencies, I decided to give craigslist a try. I'm going to write a blog post about this one day, but basically 75% of the names I received were of south asian descent. Nothing wrong with that, I read every one of those emails. The problem is that of that 75%, half of those were outsourcing "$9 / hour" agencies, and a good portion of the other half didn't have experience relevant to the position.
Big lesson learned with 3. As an indian american, I gotta really step up my networking skills in order to find other positions. If I want to apply for a position over the internet, I ABSOLUTELY must do things to stand out from the piles of emails. I already take time to write personalized cover letters, but have to have a non-standard title to stick out, and have some internet presence for them to feel comfortable with me.
Make no racial generalizations though. I've met indian folks out there that are truly amazing geeks, and can comfortably talk to you about lisp / clojure / rethinkdb / etc. I last met one in an IRS office of all places.
Do you feel that being Indian is a disadvantage?
From personal experience there are some nationalities that I associate with stupid questions, but I think I treat the clued resp. the clueless from these nationalities equal to the clued resp. the clueless from other nationalities.
But I'd be interested in your perspective.
From personal experience there are some nationalities that I associate with stupid questions, but I think I treat the clued resp. the clueless from these nationalities equal to the clued resp. the clueless from other nationalities.
But I'd be interested in your perspective.
> If I want to apply for a position over the internet, I ABSOLUTELY must do things to stand out from the piles of emails
Agreed! Regardless of your background, taking the time to write a specific cover letter and tweak your resume to highlight experience you think a particular place would appreciate is well worth it.
Consider it this way: your application is one entry into a huge priority queue heap. You want it to be picked up by the comparison operator in every significant way you can. Don't be afraid to leave out work you did if it doesn't seem relevant; it will just dilute the signal.
Agreed! Regardless of your background, taking the time to write a specific cover letter and tweak your resume to highlight experience you think a particular place would appreciate is well worth it.
Consider it this way: your application is one entry into a huge priority queue heap. You want it to be picked up by the comparison operator in every significant way you can. Don't be afraid to leave out work you did if it doesn't seem relevant; it will just dilute the signal.
As usual, most people here are trying to "understand" Indians by looking at some comments.
Some people would like nothing better than shoe horn every Indian student into "them stupid Indian" and feel smug.
The amount of clue-less students is fairly constant across countries. But, when you multiply that with the huge number of Indian students taking CS for better job prospects, you end up with this horde of n00bs.
It's just that most Indian students can read/write/speak English than, say, Chinese or eastern Europeans. So, all the English speaking world's internet is their internet too.
Chinese have their own internet. Russians have their own language forums and websites. Indians don't need that. So, India has "outsourced" student "guidance" system to the internet.
sorry about that? ;)
Some people would like nothing better than shoe horn every Indian student into "them stupid Indian" and feel smug.
The amount of clue-less students is fairly constant across countries. But, when you multiply that with the huge number of Indian students taking CS for better job prospects, you end up with this horde of n00bs.
It's just that most Indian students can read/write/speak English than, say, Chinese or eastern Europeans. So, all the English speaking world's internet is their internet too.
Chinese have their own internet. Russians have their own language forums and websites. Indians don't need that. So, India has "outsourced" student "guidance" system to the internet.
sorry about that? ;)
No offense, but if that's the full explanation, then why aren't the helpful Indians in the majority, too (there should be 2 or 3 times as much 'good' content from Indians than there is from Americans / Western Europeans)? Now there are plenty of Indians who do provide good content, on this site and elsewhere, but not in the per-capita rate one would expect from your theory (I feel, I don't have data on this). So IMO at best your theory only explains part of the phenomenon.
People have down-voted you but I actually agree with your empirical evidence. Most knowledgeable Indians don't really give much back to the greater community.
Most Indians (including me unfortunately) consume far far more content than we produce. I am concerned about this too and I've been thinking about this and I do not have concrete reasons for this yet.
I could throw up a few reasons though. It may be cultural, since many of us just do not know how to share. It may be a work-life balance issue where people who-know-stuff consider this work and won't do this in their free time. It may also be because the Indian economy is growing fast, growth opportunities are immense, so spending time on tasks that don't directly give them anything has a huge opportunity cost.
Most Indians (including me unfortunately) consume far far more content than we produce. I am concerned about this too and I've been thinking about this and I do not have concrete reasons for this yet.
I could throw up a few reasons though. It may be cultural, since many of us just do not know how to share. It may be a work-life balance issue where people who-know-stuff consider this work and won't do this in their free time. It may also be because the Indian economy is growing fast, growth opportunities are immense, so spending time on tasks that don't directly give them anything has a huge opportunity cost.
Once again, the incentives.
There is no obvious cultural incentive for smart Indians to share their knowledge on the "anonymous" internet. People look for "leverage". Sad, but true. This is the same reason why contributions to Open Source is so low from Indians.
As Aniket pointed out, knowledgeable Indians give back far less than they are capable of.
I have had the chance of observing this closely. My own mentor who is a PhD wouldn't divulge anything to anybody unless there was something in it for him. He is a great teacher, but not when it comes to sharing the "jewels".
There is no obvious cultural incentive for smart Indians to share their knowledge on the "anonymous" internet. People look for "leverage". Sad, but true. This is the same reason why contributions to Open Source is so low from Indians.
As Aniket pointed out, knowledgeable Indians give back far less than they are capable of.
I have had the chance of observing this closely. My own mentor who is a PhD wouldn't divulge anything to anybody unless there was something in it for him. He is a great teacher, but not when it comes to sharing the "jewels".
As usual, most people here are trying to "understand" Indians by looking at some comments.
I trust it was clear from my original post that I was trying to understand this group of people and not Indians in general.
I trust it was clear from my original post that I was trying to understand this group of people and not Indians in general.
Apologies.
English is only my second(?) language. I did not mean to drive any such meaning from what you said. :)
I might have generalized the answer too much to answer all the comments I've been reading here and on reddit.
English is only my second(?) language. I did not mean to drive any such meaning from what you said. :)
I might have generalized the answer too much to answer all the comments I've been reading here and on reddit.
The amount of clue-less students is fairly constant across countries. But, when you multiply that with the huge number of Indian students taking CS for better job prospects, you end up with this horde of n00bs.
This is not the only factor.
It seems that a substantial fraction of people are not suited to computer science. For instance in usability studies, most adults - even educated adults - are just unable to get the metaphor of a directory tree. They can and do learn to do sequences of actions with them by rote, but don't understand them. (These usability studies are one of the reasons why companies like Apple keep inventing UIs that hide the directory tree from people.)
In the USA this population of students is happy to ignore CS and instead study something else that they are more suited to. And can still have a good chance of getting a high paying job.
In India this population of students is under pressure to go into CS anyways because that is where the good jobs are. The distribution of clue in the population is similar, but the distribution of clue among students studying CS is not. Worse yet, universities are under pressure to avoid delivering the bad news that these students are going into the wrong line of work.
This is not the only factor.
It seems that a substantial fraction of people are not suited to computer science. For instance in usability studies, most adults - even educated adults - are just unable to get the metaphor of a directory tree. They can and do learn to do sequences of actions with them by rote, but don't understand them. (These usability studies are one of the reasons why companies like Apple keep inventing UIs that hide the directory tree from people.)
In the USA this population of students is happy to ignore CS and instead study something else that they are more suited to. And can still have a good chance of getting a high paying job.
In India this population of students is under pressure to go into CS anyways because that is where the good jobs are. The distribution of clue in the population is similar, but the distribution of clue among students studying CS is not. Worse yet, universities are under pressure to avoid delivering the bad news that these students are going into the wrong line of work.
in usability studies, most adults - even educated adults - are just unable to get the metaphor of a directory tree. They can and do learn to do sequences of actions with them by rote, but don't understand them.
Non-technical users don't "get" the directory tree because it is a leaky abstraction that fails to consistently deliver on the assurances offered to users. It helps when deterministically planning a Unix filesystem but over time the system destabilizes due to inevitable mismatches between the expectations of OS maintainers, package authors, and end users.
- Underinformed users make best-guess choices (that contradict the intentions of the system designers) as to where to put new files
- Software authors publish conflicting install guides e.g. "sudo make install" vs. "extract to ~/bin/ and add it to your path"
- Symlinks - which are fabulously useful by the way - undermine the promise of a canonical location for each file.
Non-technical users don't "get" the directory tree because it is a leaky abstraction that fails to consistently deliver on the assurances offered to users. It helps when deterministically planning a Unix filesystem but over time the system destabilizes due to inevitable mismatches between the expectations of OS maintainers, package authors, and end users.
- Underinformed users make best-guess choices (that contradict the intentions of the system designers) as to where to put new files
- Software authors publish conflicting install guides e.g. "sudo make install" vs. "extract to ~/bin/ and add it to your path"
- Symlinks - which are fabulously useful by the way - undermine the promise of a canonical location for each file.
Non-technical users don't "get" the directory tree because it is a leaky abstraction that fails to consistently deliver on the assurances offered to users. It helps when deterministically planning a Unix filesystem but over time the system destabilizes due to inevitable mismatches between the expectations of OS maintainers, package authors, and end users.
Sorry, but people's comprehension problems are much more basic than that. The very idea of a hierarchical filing system where things can be put at any level hits a mental block. This is well before any detailed discussion of how any particular thing should be organized.
Sorry, but people's comprehension problems are much more basic than that. The very idea of a hierarchical filing system where things can be put at any level hits a mental block. This is well before any detailed discussion of how any particular thing should be organized.
I think we agree with each other; I failed to properly acknowledge your main point.
The underlying problem users have with software - as illustrated by the hierarchical file system model - is being required to make decisions than they are comfortable with. If you as an iPhone user simply want to edit and store a text file, you're not going to want to have to know the stories behind emacs vs. vim, the "everything is a file" ethos of Plan 9, or the sordid history of Hans Reiser.
Apple (and other minimalist UX designers) have the right idea here: remove all unnecessary choices and questions so that the user can solve their basic need. This is minimum viable product. This is Basecamp vs. MS Project. Add extra features (i.e. extra decisions to confront the user with) if necessary, but only if they prove themselves.
The underlying problem users have with software - as illustrated by the hierarchical file system model - is being required to make decisions than they are comfortable with. If you as an iPhone user simply want to edit and store a text file, you're not going to want to have to know the stories behind emacs vs. vim, the "everything is a file" ethos of Plan 9, or the sordid history of Hans Reiser.
Apple (and other minimalist UX designers) have the right idea here: remove all unnecessary choices and questions so that the user can solve their basic need. This is minimum viable product. This is Basecamp vs. MS Project. Add extra features (i.e. extra decisions to confront the user with) if necessary, but only if they prove themselves.
> Some people would like nothing better than shoe horn every Indian student into "them stupid Indian" and feel smug.
I don't like it very much either, because in real life I have to pay the price for the stereotyping. However, stereotyping is a perfectly normal thing for humans to do, and I strongly recommend that we DO NOT make people feel guilty for it, especially in cases where it'd be quite warranted. This doesn't mean that we are all free to stereotype - it just means that we should not expect extremely unnatural behavior from others.
Indians I'm sure don't have any qualms exploiting any positive stereotypes associated with us. I suggest we own the negative stereotypes as well.
I don't like it very much either, because in real life I have to pay the price for the stereotyping. However, stereotyping is a perfectly normal thing for humans to do, and I strongly recommend that we DO NOT make people feel guilty for it, especially in cases where it'd be quite warranted. This doesn't mean that we are all free to stereotype - it just means that we should not expect extremely unnatural behavior from others.
Indians I'm sure don't have any qualms exploiting any positive stereotypes associated with us. I suggest we own the negative stereotypes as well.
I appreciate your enlightened thinking. I hope that it does not fall on deaf ears.
In the recent past, in India, there is a surge of IT companies mostly consulting, outsourcing or services based ones who employ in thousands.
These companies are fuelled by a large pool of people, who learn computers only because these jobs pay well than any other job. Engineering is a basic eligiblity criteria to get into these IT companies. Hence people flood into engineering schools to take up engineering courses in computers or electronics or mechanical or even civil courses.Most of the engineering institutes here are of quite poor quality(needs a seperate thread to discuss ;) ).
Sometimes, in order to patch up the lag between academics and employability they take up crash courses in Java or .Net. Even worse, IT services companies pick hundreds from campuses(from different disciplines like mechanical) and put them for training programmes in J2EE or .Net which lasts for 3-5 months. Clearly without getting the basics of computers right many get into the jobs.
Most of the job is outsourced from other companies and folks here in these companies work on maintenance or support projects which doesn't require much of designing or programming skills. Sometimes in need they turn to internet forums, open-source mailing lists etc. May be thats the reason behind "polite Indians" ;).
Sadly enough, most of the folks here are deliberately into computers rather than by passion.
These companies are fuelled by a large pool of people, who learn computers only because these jobs pay well than any other job. Engineering is a basic eligiblity criteria to get into these IT companies. Hence people flood into engineering schools to take up engineering courses in computers or electronics or mechanical or even civil courses.Most of the engineering institutes here are of quite poor quality(needs a seperate thread to discuss ;) ).
Sometimes, in order to patch up the lag between academics and employability they take up crash courses in Java or .Net. Even worse, IT services companies pick hundreds from campuses(from different disciplines like mechanical) and put them for training programmes in J2EE or .Net which lasts for 3-5 months. Clearly without getting the basics of computers right many get into the jobs.
Most of the job is outsourced from other companies and folks here in these companies work on maintenance or support projects which doesn't require much of designing or programming skills. Sometimes in need they turn to internet forums, open-source mailing lists etc. May be thats the reason behind "polite Indians" ;).
Sadly enough, most of the folks here are deliberately into computers rather than by passion.
I'm an Indian developer who's in Bangalore, India and was in the US for over 9 years. So, I've worked with Indians in India as well as in the US and it's usually the same reasons someone asks for answers desperately -- they have taken an assignment(at school or work) for which they're NOT always best suited.
They don't know where to start BUT they need to submit the assignments soon. They start asking their friends (through phone, chat and email). If they don't have friends, they ask on the net.
The anonymity that internet affords makes these normally polite Indians aggressive -- if you were to meet these Indians, they certainly would NOT demand the same of you.
Most of them don't understand that asking a question the wrong way(http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html) is considered offensive. I wish more forums had an auto-responder which sent this link to "clue in" those Indians.
They don't know where to start BUT they need to submit the assignments soon. They start asking their friends (through phone, chat and email). If they don't have friends, they ask on the net.
The anonymity that internet affords makes these normally polite Indians aggressive -- if you were to meet these Indians, they certainly would NOT demand the same of you.
Most of them don't understand that asking a question the wrong way(http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html) is considered offensive. I wish more forums had an auto-responder which sent this link to "clue in" those Indians.
These people are of course Indian students trying to download code.
The root problem is population. Only few elite colleges have phd/masters teachers. To get into these elite few the ratio of candidates appearing is 130 PER SEAT !!
Now even if you are a brilliant student, you are not guaranteed admission due to a certain 'balancing factor'. You need good marks in all subjects equally, not just the ones you are interested in. (I scored 4 times the cutoff in physics but still couldn't get into IIT, due to 2 marks lower in chem. I hated cramming inorganic salt colors.) As a result even many brilliant students enter bad colleges with very bad teachers. Again the 'balancing factor' jumps in. The aim, it seems, is to keep the student busy (with useless things that mostly involve nothing more than microsoft office.) At the end of degree, you know nothing. (Nobody in my class could write a c program if you mentioned the word file handling).
Infosys hired 40% of my class and only one student was asked 1 technical question. 6 students were asked riddles. Rest 48 were just thrown through a basic HR.
In the pre-final year of college 'balancing factor' by the parents jump in. Students are mostly advised (family/peer pressure) to ride the 'MBA' wave. Nothing is knowledge driven. Everything is money driven.
The root problem is population. Only few elite colleges have phd/masters teachers. To get into these elite few the ratio of candidates appearing is 130 PER SEAT !!
Now even if you are a brilliant student, you are not guaranteed admission due to a certain 'balancing factor'. You need good marks in all subjects equally, not just the ones you are interested in. (I scored 4 times the cutoff in physics but still couldn't get into IIT, due to 2 marks lower in chem. I hated cramming inorganic salt colors.) As a result even many brilliant students enter bad colleges with very bad teachers. Again the 'balancing factor' jumps in. The aim, it seems, is to keep the student busy (with useless things that mostly involve nothing more than microsoft office.) At the end of degree, you know nothing. (Nobody in my class could write a c program if you mentioned the word file handling).
Infosys hired 40% of my class and only one student was asked 1 technical question. 6 students were asked riddles. Rest 48 were just thrown through a basic HR.
In the pre-final year of college 'balancing factor' by the parents jump in. Students are mostly advised (family/peer pressure) to ride the 'MBA' wave. Nothing is knowledge driven. Everything is money driven.
My guess is these are final year students at engineering colleges doing the final year "project" that is mandatory to secure the degree. These folks (i was one of them too) never really have a chance to think and do stuff on their own till this project, and then all of a sudden you are required to do something interesting all by yourself to secure a degree. Most of them end up doing really horrible projects (but no one really cares about them actually, so they do get a degree after all).
For some, this is when things start to turn around for good :)
For some, this is when things start to turn around for good :)
I got these comments even without posting any code. When I posted this: http://igorpartola.com/web-development/a-clever-way-to-fight...
I got comments like this:
"Substantially, the write-up is really the freshest on that deserving subject. I harmonise along with your conclusions as well as surely will eagerly look ahead for your long term updates. Saying many thanks certainly will not simply just be sufficient, for your exceptional lucidity as part of your creating. I can directly seize your rss feed to remain privy of any sort of updates. Gratifying operate and in addition much accomplishment in your organization enterprize!"
No idea where it all came from. The links they leave are along the lines of http://Yourwebsite, so can't really be spam I guess. I don't get what the angle is.
I got comments like this:
"Substantially, the write-up is really the freshest on that deserving subject. I harmonise along with your conclusions as well as surely will eagerly look ahead for your long term updates. Saying many thanks certainly will not simply just be sufficient, for your exceptional lucidity as part of your creating. I can directly seize your rss feed to remain privy of any sort of updates. Gratifying operate and in addition much accomplishment in your organization enterprize!"
No idea where it all came from. The links they leave are along the lines of http://Yourwebsite, so can't really be spam I guess. I don't get what the angle is.
I'm pretty sure they're SEO spam: the flattering comment is to make sure it gets approved by the blog admin, but the aim is to increase the number of links to http://Yourwebsite.
I get stacks of these daily, so I make sure I only approve rude or unflattering comments on my blog.
I get stacks of these daily, so I make sure I only approve rude or unflattering comments on my blog.
I think he meant http://Yourwebsite is actually how it looks like (i.e. not a real website), so it can't be spam
Maybe it's intended as SEO spam, but the people who wrote it made a mistake?
zavulon is correct, that is literally what they wrote. There were several like this. I suppose the great-grandparent post is correct: they are using this to make sure their name comes up with clean results on Google.
These are just like the spams with a subject line of "[FIRST NAME], get Vi@gr@ here' - they are posted by scripts that are operated by people who can't even fill in the configuration fields of the software they use, or who write buggy code that doesn't do proper text substitution. It's quite funny sometimes.
This phenomenon is probably explained differently. I think this is SEO but not necessarily spam.
If they are using their real names, I think these are more likely ego-trips. People are probably trying to flood their names online. This may also be about portraying a clean online image whenever anyone searches about them.
If they are using their real names, I think these are more likely ego-trips. People are probably trying to flood their names online. This may also be about portraying a clean online image whenever anyone searches about them.
I'm pretty sure those are automated test posts by link spammers. Approve one comment like that and I'll bet you'll be flooded with comments that actually point somewhere.
I had the same issue. After installing reCAPTCHA (it's a WordPress blog) the problem disappeared immediately, which proves it was spam.
I knew quite a lot of "polite Nepalis" that met this description when I lived and worked in Nepal. There are lots and lots of CS programs but few good professors. Students have to do much of their learning on their own. They reach out to the Internet for these reasons. They also may not have grown up with Internet access but only gotten it after moving to the city for school.
It doesn't seem that polite to me to keep asking for basic information in someone's blog comments. In particular, you tell Ghiayas you can't help him, and then pradeep kumar starts asking the same question (which implies a sock puppet to me) and later Ghiayas comes back with even more questions. If that seems polite to you, then you are a very tolerant and kind man indeed.
You're probably asking the wrong question. India is huge, about 1/3rd the size of the US, with a population of over a billion.
In any environment of that size you're going to get idiots as well as great people. Thankfully most of my experiences with Indians in and out of India have been with great, hard working, optimistic and fun people.
In any environment of that size you're going to get idiots as well as great people. Thankfully most of my experiences with Indians in and out of India have been with great, hard working, optimistic and fun people.
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It's not just students. Nor are the requests always polite, even if they are couched in a sort of ritualized language that uses formal and polite terms of address (that is a cultural phenomenon we in the west have mostly abandoned; most Asian cultures still use it to speak across social and generational hierachies). What follows in an excerpt from a blog posting I made back in 2004 (the blog itself kind of went off on a tangent and then died of neglect when shortly afterward due to my Parkinsonism and a series of small strokes, so it's probably best left unlinked). I was a well-known developer on the Lotus Domino platform at the time...
"What seems like forever ago, I made the mistake of mentioning in one or the other of the developerWorks forums that I had a way to create a pretty-looking categorized calendar on the web. I say 'mistake' because the requests for the code have reached the level that they actually swamp out the spam in my inbox (proving once and for all that Domino, at least, is not dead yet). I've sent out demo databases in response, and they have helped a few people. Many, many more people have just turned around and outright demanded that I do the work it would take to integrate the calendar into their applications. For free, mind you.
"When did that kind of behaviour become acceptable? I really hate to unfairly categorize these requests, but the vast majority have come from the same people and organisations that are trying to put me out of work by claiming to be able to do my job for less money. (I should point out here that I make a whole lot less than most Americans and Europeans in the Notes development game would make as the consequences of being Canadian, of how I got this job, and of the vagaries of corporate M&A.) Now, I've been beyond broke, and I can understand beggars, but I never imagined that I would regularly encounter the equivalent of streetcorner beggars who are fully employed and ask not for spare change, but for passers-by to go to the office and do their work for them, gratis, so that they can collect their salaries.
"I'm quite well aware that there are a lot (and I do mean a lot) more people working in places like Bangalore and Mumbai than have ever requested code from me, but there still seems to be a disproportionate number of people from the major outsourcing centres who feel entitled to demand that I do their work for them. I'm not talking about 'borrowing' code here — anyone who has embarked on a developer's career without peeking at other people's code can probably be fairly classified as an idiot. Nor am I talking about people who are merely trying to learn the sort of stuff you don't get in the 'Introduction to Domino Designer' course; I generally have a high tolerance for newbies who actually seem to want to learn. I did, after all, offer the code base, and I have no problem working with people who have made an effort to understand what I've done and may have a lingering question or two. I'm just wondering what kind of cultural climate would persuade anyone, anywhere, to believe that it's perfectly okay to demand that I (or anyone else, for that matter) do work for free so that they can be paid for 'work' they got by undercutting my wages."
"What seems like forever ago, I made the mistake of mentioning in one or the other of the developerWorks forums that I had a way to create a pretty-looking categorized calendar on the web. I say 'mistake' because the requests for the code have reached the level that they actually swamp out the spam in my inbox (proving once and for all that Domino, at least, is not dead yet). I've sent out demo databases in response, and they have helped a few people. Many, many more people have just turned around and outright demanded that I do the work it would take to integrate the calendar into their applications. For free, mind you.
"When did that kind of behaviour become acceptable? I really hate to unfairly categorize these requests, but the vast majority have come from the same people and organisations that are trying to put me out of work by claiming to be able to do my job for less money. (I should point out here that I make a whole lot less than most Americans and Europeans in the Notes development game would make as the consequences of being Canadian, of how I got this job, and of the vagaries of corporate M&A.) Now, I've been beyond broke, and I can understand beggars, but I never imagined that I would regularly encounter the equivalent of streetcorner beggars who are fully employed and ask not for spare change, but for passers-by to go to the office and do their work for them, gratis, so that they can collect their salaries.
"I'm quite well aware that there are a lot (and I do mean a lot) more people working in places like Bangalore and Mumbai than have ever requested code from me, but there still seems to be a disproportionate number of people from the major outsourcing centres who feel entitled to demand that I do their work for them. I'm not talking about 'borrowing' code here — anyone who has embarked on a developer's career without peeking at other people's code can probably be fairly classified as an idiot. Nor am I talking about people who are merely trying to learn the sort of stuff you don't get in the 'Introduction to Domino Designer' course; I generally have a high tolerance for newbies who actually seem to want to learn. I did, after all, offer the code base, and I have no problem working with people who have made an effort to understand what I've done and may have a lingering question or two. I'm just wondering what kind of cultural climate would persuade anyone, anywhere, to believe that it's perfectly okay to demand that I (or anyone else, for that matter) do work for free so that they can be paid for 'work' they got by undercutting my wages."
I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you. I'm sure I'd feel the same way but I must reiterate something I mentioned in another comment, never help even one person who acts in such a way.
Information that a particular person is helpful spreads fast within organizations (and with the web across organizations). So a barrage of request might happen.
I'd actually recommend turning this situation to your advantage. Create a template mail that quotes your consulting charges. Whenever somebody makes such a request, send them your template mail.
Some outsourcing shops would actually gladly pay you top dollars for your services.
Information that a particular person is helpful spreads fast within organizations (and with the web across organizations). So a barrage of request might happen.
I'd actually recommend turning this situation to your advantage. Create a template mail that quotes your consulting charges. Whenever somebody makes such a request, send them your template mail.
Some outsourcing shops would actually gladly pay you top dollars for your services.
Good advice going forward for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation. I'm out of the game myself these days, but I actually did that when I was still active (after this little rant bomb went off). And I know that there are undertones of bitterness and racism in that original posting, but I was especially frustrated by nearly five hundred unread emails that particular morning -- my main client at the time thought I was ignoring her because it took me hours to find the one message that was actually important among the pile of messages all tagged as high priority. That's not a real excuse, but once I clicked Post it was on the intarwebz forever, and I've got enough integrity to let my personal lapses stand for posterity.
(By the way, Indians were not and are not the only people who had a highly developed sense of entitlement. It's the thin and poorly applied synthetic varnish of politesse laid over the demand that made the Asian emails especially annoying. An honest "gimme-e-e!" hurts the teeth much less than dishonest, disrespectful "respect".)
(By the way, Indians were not and are not the only people who had a highly developed sense of entitlement. It's the thin and poorly applied synthetic varnish of politesse laid over the demand that made the Asian emails especially annoying. An honest "gimme-e-e!" hurts the teeth much less than dishonest, disrespectful "respect".)
The problem stems from the expectations that are placed on people here. For example, in school, home-work assignments are due "tomorrow without fail", and then the students just take the easiest way out for the submission.
The mentality plays a second role: once you're in some position of power (a manager), you want to boss around everyone and prove that you're the person in charge. So managers of projects want everything in 20 days when they might charge clients for 90 days. There's hardly time for the people involved to understand the problem and solve it: they just want to make sure the manager gets what he wants.
Moreover, the employees are in a different set of mentality: they think they don't have much power and that they shouldn't question the manager else their job/backside will be on the line. So they just do what's needed, else come up with creative arguments on the last day.
The mentality plays a second role: once you're in some position of power (a manager), you want to boss around everyone and prove that you're the person in charge. So managers of projects want everything in 20 days when they might charge clients for 90 days. There's hardly time for the people involved to understand the problem and solve it: they just want to make sure the manager gets what he wants.
Moreover, the employees are in a different set of mentality: they think they don't have much power and that they shouldn't question the manager else their job/backside will be on the line. So they just do what's needed, else come up with creative arguments on the last day.
In Australia we have an additional problem. We have a strong, English speaking education system but unfortunately the CS schools here aren't as prestigious as MIT/Stanford/CMU etc, and Australia isn't seen as good a destination as the US for Indian emigrants.
That means we get Indians who can't get into US colleges and/or can't get US jobs: ie, the second rate developers. Unfortunately that means that any good Indians here will have to work twice as hard to overcome that reputation.
Interestingly, for some reason we seem to get a lot of really good Chinese students and immigrants, so they don't have the reputation problems to overcome.
Throwaway account for the first time on HN :(
That means we get Indians who can't get into US colleges and/or can't get US jobs: ie, the second rate developers. Unfortunately that means that any good Indians here will have to work twice as hard to overcome that reputation.
Interestingly, for some reason we seem to get a lot of really good Chinese students and immigrants, so they don't have the reputation problems to overcome.
Throwaway account for the first time on HN :(
With so many people already giving the reason behind why Polite Indians do that, I need not repeat them.
But I will like to add one very important point.
India is a huge country - Population wise. They have millions of Software Engineers I guess.
You cannot expect all of them to be Experts or have lot of knowledge. But they do have a substantial amount of talent. I am not sure, but the percentage ratio might be as good as that of USA or UK or any other country.
Its probably their huge numbers, that you feel that "In almost all cases it appears that these folks are from India."
Do you have the problem with
a) polite?
b) Indian?
c) inappropriate questions?
Jealous and hatefulness makes you feel like that. Just think of everyone as a human being. No race, culture , country, color and gender defines somebody. If you think you're superior than anyone or everyone then you're mistaken. If you look for any such kind of people then you can find it just in your neighborhood. I've seen many people doing that but never differentiated them on the country,gender and color basis.
HTH
Regards, basileis
HTH
Regards, basileis
[deleted]
I will just say it, I hate such people. These are mostly engineering students from second grade college (like me) either trying to do their homework or trying to do some odd jobs for some small company in their locality. They usually just ask for the solution point blank without even trying to understand the problem space (not like me). And then they call this "learning something which is not in the textbook". If you have asked for a solution directly from some random guy/chick from the internet, where does learning comes in all this?
They make us all look stupid. I started bidding on some freelancer projects a few days back and 1 out of 3 projects from US or UK have a strict No-Indian policy.
They make us all look stupid. I started bidding on some freelancer projects a few days back and 1 out of 3 projects from US or UK have a strict No-Indian policy.
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/e39xr/the_posting_of_an_open_source_payroll_app_with_a/
I've experienced exactly this on my own blog (see, for example, comments on this post: http://blog.jgc.org/2008/02/tonight-im-going-to-write-myself-aston.html)
Does anyone have insight into who these folks are? Are they students? This seems like an interesting cultural phenomenon. These folks are universally polite, but seem to have little clue. Often asking the most basic questions which seem to indicate that they have little knowledge. Given their low level of knowledge it's striking that they are often trying to download and understand quite complex programs. Many times they seem to not even be able to locate the download link for source code.
In almost all cases it appears that these folks are from India.