Thursday, April 27, 2006

Online Credit Card Appln with poor coding

I got a new credit card from one of the oldest and famous banks in US. I tried registering my card online so that I could manage my account online, which is much easier than calling the Bank / card division. When I tried registering, there was this drop down which said "Select your Account Type" and there was no value in the drop down and it wouldnt allow me to key-in the other fields as well. Frustrated with this, I thot of seeing the code of the page, to see that the jsp had a beautiful list of documentation on the Bug fixes with the Developer who fixed it and more...
Some excerpts from the code.... (I have removed the developer name below)
"Modified error msg SU035 for QA Bug FIx #3567"
"CH 19 Begin UI changes as per the UI document version 23c - 19/02/2003. This javascript code retained here during refactoring"
The Best / Worst part is that ALL the Developer names are Indian names. When will Secure Quality code be delivered by Indian IT Services companies ??

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

So do u mean Indians dont deliver quality code?

Nitin Chandil said...

Now I see, why you quit Inf* :)

Joebi said...

To Mr. Anonymous,
I dont say Indians dont deliver quality code but I would surely say that Indian IT Services company dont deliver "Secure and High Quality" code. The CMMs and Quality process seems to be gud in papers only.

Joebi said...

Hi Nitin,

Nice meeting you in Orkut and in the blog after a long time. :)
You got it right.. thatz one of the reasons I quit Infy :)

Joebi said...

Prabhu,

There are some gud Indian programmers but the ratio of gud to bad programmers is like 1:30 or 1:40. The main reason to engage Indian programmers is the cost factor and not the quality factor. You can get an Indian programmer who works from 8 - 8 for $5k per month (if he is working from US) or around $500 if he is working from offshore. If Indian ITS(IT Services) companies continue to deliver poor quality / insecure code, it would not take too long to move projects out to China.
US companies with itz capitalistic mode of corporate governance doesnt have an affordable set of Human resource pool of American programmers. When they see cheaper and certified (CMM and watever) SW vendors, they opt for outsourcing. These SW vendors also deliver but do they deliver the best ??? Best in terms of performance, Security, Quality ?
All these ITS companies shine well in papers but not in real. They sure wud have executed some(did I say a handful ?) top class projects but not much. There are some outstanding Indian programmers but not a whole lott.
If you think my comment is baseless then why am I able to find bugs in the Production code of critical applications ?

Anonymous said...

Well, you never know if the best quality, most secure & robust web sites were developed by Indian too. It's just that they are too good not to leave their imprints/names there but some people do (there are always exceptions) and you can't go around blaming the entire fraternity for this - had the situation been this bad bad, Indian IT Services Companies wouldn't have blossomed the way they have and continue too...Amar!

Anonymous said...

Dude - also, just by reading their names, how did conclude that they were employed/working for an Indian IT Services company.
Don't you think it is likely that they are Indians; however, working for a software/other company in US - many Indians do that...don't they? So, be sure before you generalize anything of this sort about India or Indians or Indian IT companies...sorry for being rude, but you just touched the weak nerve of mine :-)...Amar!

Joebi said...

Hi Amar,
As I said earlier, I bet there are some fine Indian programmers, architects, engineers, etc. There is no doubt about that.
It is just that their population is few in Indian SW companies. Companies recruit bulk freshers, train them on platform X and ask them to work on platform Z (there are exceptions for this scenario as well). Most people are moulded to become jack of all trades. ITES companies often forget the "IT" part and concentrate on the business / Services part of it. Their priority is to sell more people and not always the proper solution. These are just plain facts which are not written down but practised.
Indian ITES companies have grown big and good. (I dont want to assume itz because of the 80-20 rule).I am glad for that. But are they ready for the next level ?
The ITES industry is a knowledge-driven industry. Knowledge driven by the core components ie the employees of the companies. Every employee is skilled / special in some specific field. When an employee competent in Java is pushed into .Net project or a COBOL resource pushed into Java project, flaws, bugs, delays are bound to happen. Business "still" happens at EOD. Companies "still" make money and revenue "still" grows. But can we move further to achieve goals and realize visions with such scenarios ? Are we exceeding our expectations in terms of Quality / Security of the Deliverable ? Are we strong enough to execute a multi-million $$ mamooth project ?? Should not the dreams of ITES companies be big enough ?? Should they not strive towards such dreams ?? Should they not be uncompromising on their core values ?(and explain a client if they dont have right resources to fit in for a requirement, etc etc ) Should they not..