trying to discuss this and still be a-political.

I think it would be shortsighted to think that C/S is doomed within the US and I am troubled to hear about your son's choice, Amy. I know it is very hard for a youngster to be enthusiastic about something when everybody else is despondent, but for all the offshoring fad, in the long run the US is going to remain the driver in all things technology.

India or any other country may not be able to deliver turnkey solutions from afar. You cannot have architects sitting in Dhaka deciding any US corporations's tech future. Yes, programmers can do the job there, as long as somebody here can validate, verify and approve of their work. The only turnkey solutions they can develop is for their local companies, and most likely that is the only certainty here : countries that supply offshore programming labor today are going to invigorate the local tech environment for faster adoption of hi-tech. Otherwise 'offshore' can only claim the lower end of the job, the pure programmer. Which means the tech worker who sticks with it here would only move up, get to direct and guide them, and in general come out okay.

And according to Gartner the actual percentage of programming jobs gone offshore today remains very low, in the single digits (I shall try and get the link for this). The job downturn in the past couple of years has only served to underline the trend and make it seem huge. I strongly believe that there is more programming work than can be done with resources within the US.

Yes, when it gets personal, it hurts. I have come across people who lost their jobs, but few of them remained job-less for long. I myself was 'unoccupied' for a couple of months, despite a higher profile than average, but finally came out on top, better than before.

And for all this, it is totally unproductive to adopt a 'us-and-them' attitude. If you have lived thru a downsizing exercise at your workplace, you would realize that the surviving people feel just as miserable as those let go. Blaming the programmer in Asia for a decision taken by a company here doesn't work. And neither does blaming a job loss here on 'karma' or because you-took-away-our-neem-patent. All this is 'progress', whether we like it or not. Being bitter about it does nothing but vitiate the work-atmosphere, and leaves us with lesser options. I am referring to the 'global work-and-team-environment' that we cannot avoid now.

I realize that this thread has already got quite 'warm'; i shall not be contributing to it (this thread) any further, in my attempt to 'cool it'.

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