Ukraine Holds 4th Largest Programmer Population

andrewuoft points out this BusinessWeek article on the budding technology sector of Ukraine; the article points out that Ukraine has -- "after the U.S., India, and Russia -- the fourth largest number of computer programmers in the world" and that "Even today, scientific institutes each year churn out some 50,000 science or technology graduates. Not surprisingly, Ukrainians don't see why their country can't become a big player in the global technology market, like India."

Correlation?

4th largest Geek Population?

Maybe this would explain why there seem to be so many Hot, Available Ukrainian Women [ukrainian-women.net] looking to get out.

Re:This is not serious!

Get a hold of yourself.

Have you ever been to Ukraine? I haven't, but I've been to Romania, a neighbouring country with the same mindset regarding computer programming. I was there for BOI (the Balkan Olympiad in informatics) and let me tell you that Romanians kicked our Balkan (and in other times international) asses. I'm not going to chalk this up to training and practice because they were awfully talented guys (and it would like I'm bitter, which I am not), but they *do* have an excellent education system which, as I've heard, would teach them about graphs and minimum spanning trees while we were being taught on using MS Paint on Windows 3.1.

Is it a rich country? From what I've seen in Iasi, it's not. Do they know how to get there? Somebody in their Ministry of Education sure does.

Globalization

With the economical globalization these days, the trend (strategy?) for some countries seem to overspecialize in one specific area (in this case, IT) to outperform competition on a worldwide scale. Risky for sure, but it seems to work right now (at least for India, who reap the profits of investing massively in IT).

Quality Not Quantity

What the future of technology needs more than anything is the reversal of the quantity philosophy. More is not always better.

Re:speak for yourself, object.

Indeed, that is where people like Linus Torvalds make an odds-defying explosion into mainstream computing. However, there is more to my statement than just programmer population. Quality also refers to program quality. Not half-assed buggy software that was hurriedly released because of a dealine, and then half-assed patches and updates that were also released on a deadline.

Re:Quality Not Quantity

I believe it was Stalin who said 'Quantity has a quality all its own'. How that applies to IT (vs military might), I am not sure but it seeems an appropriate qoute.

hold on

I wouldn't think that emulating India is really the way to go. The entire economic output of India is less than the state of Illinois. In addition, India's call center business is almost 100% U.S. customers. Ukraine has some, ahem, moral issues that make it politically difficult for American companies to outsource there.

Re:hold on

I wouldn't think that emulating India is really the way to go

Yah, they should just run it natively.

Small typo

Both the submitter and the FA author seem to have misspelled "Elbonia."

more to it

There's more to becoming a global player than just the number of programmers. The infrastructure is important: not only the physical infrastructure like roads, trains and powerlines, but also the governmental infrastructure (like courts, government offices, etc.). Plus, a stable government (not a one-man show like in many other places) is necessary: money flees uncertainty.

It is unfortunate, but Ukraine has gained notoriety for being the base of a lot of the "east european bride" scammers. Plus, the general perceived lawlessness of the fUSSR republics is not conducive to investment. Face it: post communism, there were a lot of problems with foreign partners of Russian businessmen being bumped off and strong-armed.

Things may be different now, but a good reputation takes time to develop.

As far as India is concerned: there are many Indians in high places in tech companies in the US, and the natual tendency is for them to favor India (a known commodity, to them) for outsourcing their operations.

Article text in case someone actually reads it

and the server goes down.

Building The Muscle To Be A Tech Player

Ukraine has a bunch of cornfields, a bunch of old steel mills, and not much else. Right? Well, Ukraine also has a budding technology sector, and -- after the U.S., India, and Russia -- the fourth largest number of computer programmers in the world. It was a main center of the Soviet programming industry. The first computer built in continental Europe was made in Ukraine in 1951. Even today, scientific institutes each year churn out some 50,000 science or technology graduates. Not surprisingly, Ukrainians don't see why their country can't become a big player in the global technology market, like India. "We want Ukraine to become a technological country again, not just a country with agriculture and tank production," says Yuri Sivitsky, chairman of Softline, one of Ukraine's largest software producers.

What are the chances? While Ukraine isn't likely ever to rival India, it certainly has the potential to become a player. Just look at Softline. Founded by mathematicians in 1995, it has 500 employees, up from a dozen in 1998. Revenues are set to hit $10 million this year, up 70% from 2003. Its clients include Ingersoll-Rand Co. (IR ) and Hugo Boss.

The offshore programming industry, although small, is growing fast. According to Market-Visio, a research firm in Moscow, Ukraine's software exports will grow 43% this year to $100 million. Around 10,000 programmers are employed in the industry, working for customers such as Boeing (BA ), DaimlerChrysler (DCX ), General Electric (GE ), Citibank (C ), and NASA. Much of the work is customized business software. But gaming is also growing. Kvasar-Micro, Ukraine's largest info tech company, recently landed an order to develop a computer game for mobile handsets.

Ukraine's main selling point is the quality of its mathematical education. Another is cheap labor. An average programmer in Ukraine earns $500 a month, not quite as low as India, but half the level in Moscow and a fraction of programming salaries in the West. But the edge Ukraine gets from high education and low wages is offset by other factors. Around 90% of all software on sale in Ukraine is pirated, so domestic makers can't get the revenue they need to grow. Other problems are a lack of business skills, venture finance, and government support. But things are looking up. Management skills are improving as Ukrainians gain Western experience and earn MBAs. The government is mulling tax incentives for tech investment and starting to tighten piracy laws.

Some of the biggest names in the global technology industry have started to wake up to Ukraine's potential. "Ukraine is building up quickly," says Gerard J. Kleisterlee, CEO of Dutch electronics giant Royal Philips Electronics (PHG ), which makes an array of high-tech goods there. Flextronics International Ltd. (FLEX ), a Singapore electronics powerhouse, recently set up a software design lab in Ukraine, and CEO Michael E. Marks is enthusiastic about the nation's potential as an engineering and design power. If he's right, Ukraine has a digital future.

I'm shocked, so shocked.

Not surprisingly, Ukrainians don't see why their country can't become a big player in the global technology market, like India."

Because of the massive amounts of corruption at all levels of government? Organized crime bosses who refuse to let companies set up shop without bribes?

in

In the former Soviet Union, the software compiled YOU!

Ukrainian programmers

the next Doom3/HL2/Far Cry killer that THQ will publish next year, STALKER: SHadow of Chernobyl is developed by a Ukrainian company called GSC gameworld. They also developed Firestarter if you played it :)

dont underestimate...

dont underestimate about the upcoming rivals like ireland and china. who can offer cheap outsourcing than india. but i guess software-outsourcing industry will take 2-3 years more to mature well... and to decide where to put money.

Ukraine Weak!

"Ha ha, the Ukraine. Do you know what the Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble. I think it's time to put the hurt on the Ukraine."

Classic Seinfeld

[Kramer and Newman are playing Risk...] Newman: I'm not beaten yet. I still have armies in the Ukraine. Kramer: Ha ha, the Ukraine. Do you know what the Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble. I think it's time to put the hurt on the Ukraine. Ukrainian: I come from Ukraine. You not say Ukraine weak. Kramer: Yeah, well we're playing a game here, pal. Ukrainian: Ukraine is game to you?! Howbout I take your little board and smash it!! The Ukrainian pounds the game board, destroying it and sending army pieces flying.

Germany?

Wow. I really expected Germany to be on that list at least. After all, we do hear about most virus writers coming from this country, as well as the hackers they have.

I can see why...

They hold the third largest population of phishers scammers and hackers.
Ukrainian programmers won't be the first to land fat outsourcing contracts: they are as mob-ridden as Russia [securitypipeline.com]and better known for This kind of programmer than India is. [crime-research.org]

incorrect assumption

Ukrainians don't see why their country can't become a big player in the global technology market, like India."

Because "programming" isn't the key factor in whether your nation is a "big player" in the global technology market. It is a factor, but it's a ways down the list.

Ukranian guy won a software competition

Last winter I've got an idea of trying a software competition to develop a video streamer for the network cameras developed by Elphel [slashdot.org] (both software and hardware are GPL'ed). I decided to try Russian software developers (I'm Russian myself) so I wrote an article in a Russian online magazine "Computerra" and offered a $3000 prize for the best streamer to use with the camera (the code was to retain author's copyright and be released under GNU/GPL). I did not expect many participants and thought I'l sacrifice 3 cameras. But it turned different and I've sent out 9 of them - 4 to Russia, 3 - to Ukraine, 1 - to Germany and 1 to India (the article was in Russian - that restricted participants to Russian-reading).

Of those 9 participants 6 reached the finish line and the winner is Ukrainian Alexander Melichenko. What amazed me was that I've got the first version of his steamer in just a couple weeks after the announcement _before_ he received the hardware! Hi used my online camera to download his application over the Internet and made it working. And the camera uses Axis ETRAX100LX CPU - something he never programmed before.

All that software is now on our Sourceforge project page - https://sourceforge.net/projects/elphel [sourceforge.net].

ukraine is not weak . . .

ukraine is not weak, ukraine is strong

Contradicting the popular opinion

I've just gotten done reading the initial reaction of trolls and jokes about this.

Ukraine does have quality engineers, does have better economics and less corruption than other CIS countries, and has been a considerable supporter of US interests (e.g., they dropped one of the highest levels of troops into Iraq for support. Even though, honestly, a country like that couldn't afford large military action, they did so anyway and I might add- with a level of political push considerably lower than others.)

They are a society with European heritage, a large number of the population understands English, German, French, Italian, etc.) and for most Americans travelling to a typical "outsource" destination, Ukraine is both a familiar and not-so-culture-shocking destination (Compared, say, to China or India, for most Americans)

I cannot say they don't have drawbacks, but I've researched the area heavilly and found that the people are much like the USA glory days -- preferring "Handles" and such, for fun mostly, and their display of individual pride. Here in old Silicon Valley, I'm corporate Borg. Getting sick of it.

The organized crime aspects, well, I've had many discussions about that as well-- software isn't really their target, though. In most cases, its usually "competition" that drives the hostilities, and likewise, the vast majority of such cases are non-violent... just annoying (phone turned off, electricity cut, etc.) Like anywhere in the world, if you don't want trouble, don't start trouble. Respect goes a long way in those cultures.

Personally, I'd jump at the chance to go to Ukraine myself. I think it would be rewarding and fun to help cultivate not only the economic flow, but to work with the people there.

For those who are more politically inclined about how the Ukrainian air is going, the present Presidential Elections in Ukraine are showing a huge outpouring of support for the new candidate that wishes to bring Ukraine into the EEC.

There aren't that many CIS countries that can say they are trying quite as hard to embrace the Westernized world by cooperation and with as little grandstanding as Ukraine is doing.

Anyway, they aren't so bad: Wikkkipedia on Ukraine [wikipedia.org] and they can ROCK [wikipedia.org] too!

Peace out. :)

Lots of pascal in Eastern Europe

I've gotten the impression that there is lots of pascal development still going on in Easter Europe, including turbo. That seems to be something of a dying / lost art in the US. I wonder if there is a viable business in maintaining / updating pascal code.

It's simple

Ukranians didn't have some asshole like Disraeli come through and give away the crown jewels in the form of enforced education in the English language.

Skills

I used to have a defineable, pretty unique skill. I can draw stuff as a draftsman on paper. My unique "skill" was pretty much killed by widespread CAD adoption. This major change didn't just affect me, it screwed quite a few hundred thousand other people that had decades of experience and knowledge.

This is not really a problem as it will only take two or three generations of designers to adapt to the new technology. Death will eventually solve this problem.

I could elaborate, but it's probably pointless to do so in this forum where computerization=cool.

How about Nigeria?

With the amount of spam generated from Nigeria,
I would have thought that Nigeria would made it to the list.
No?

Went to Ukraine...

I actually went to Kiev in 2001 to start an outsourcing company. It was a FASCINATING if not profitable experience. Kiev is somewhat cosmopolitan for an Eastern European city though not Paris. We started a joint venture with a CompSci department at the University of Kiev. The first class of recruits would probably have gotten a B as a group with a couple of A students and a bunch of Bs and a couple of Cs. The educational system for tech there is very rigorous. These guys were ready to go in C++ but we had them all take certs in Java to have things covered. Sadly, we were underfunded and when the bubble burst, trying to sell a software service contract for a startup in Kiev to someone in the US was nigh impossible. One year and the team took their terminals as severance. Helluva learning experience.

Kvasar-Micro

Kvasar-Micro, Ukraine's largest info tech company...

Kvasar-Micro is moving their headquarters to Moscow. It's demonstrative :)

Expensive...

A few months ago, we tendered for some work in the region of US$2m to be outsourced. The best prices came from Poland and Bulgaria. Then Ukraine, then India. We did site visits to all but India (their quote was off the radar) to determine their capabilities. We were not impressed with the infrastructure or general atmosphere in the Ukraine although their guys seemed good - it was too much of a risk and we could see it costing us money. Poland looked good but Bulgaria was cheaper. What to do?

And then, of course, the inevitable happened - the project got cancelled...

The first computer built in continental Europe ..

was build 1936 in Germany (Zuse Z1) and not 1951 in Ukraine as BusinessWeek claimed.

What Unit?

Sure, maybe the 4th largest by quantity, but the US has the largest programmer population by volume.

Irish Perspective

Ireland is pretty big in software, though we do not have five year programming degrees like in some CIS countries. Per head of population there are more commercial programmers in Ireland than in Ukraine, United States, Russia or India. Maybe not as high a percentage as the Silicon Valley area.

Ireland should be offshoring to other countries [geocities.com] but it is not, I think low and intermediate software management are complete control freeks (compared even to programmers) and outsourcing would be forced upon them by higher management rather than on their own initiative.

I tried to drum up a little interest in outsourceing to Belarus, where my bride is from, plenty of interest from Belarus software companies who had previously done outsourcing work, zero interest from the Irish software industry.

Outsourcing my personal project

I kind of resent the fact that all these huge multi-billion dollar corporations get to save all this money with cheap overseas labor, when there is no parallel opportunity for me as an individual. I hear that there are programmers who will work for $5/hour (I don't know about the Ukraine)- it would be really great if I could jumpstart my sourceforge project by getting say 20 hours of programming time from someone for $100, or if I could do the same for art assets or anything else. Hell, if all the programming in this country is going to be outsourced while the management stays here, having this outsourcing management experience is going to look a lot better on my resume than if I had done all the coding myself.

Seriously, I realize that Sourceforge has the paypal thing which probably is more for rewarding work that has already been done, but there also needs to be some kind of micro-contract agency that allows me to get a set amount of work done in the future.

The potential will remain there

My view on this is that this huge potential will remain just that - potential, without translating into anything tangible, like a huge booming offshore programming industry like in India.

There are many reasons for this, but I'll list the main ones only:

1) The government doesn't give a squat about programming industry or economy in general. They won't care about it unless there are some money to be had for them. It won't happen unless the industry magically develops by itself and even then will only be to its detriment.
2) Yes, Ukraine is better than most other CIS countries, but that only means they are neck-deep in shit instead of being totally submerged like Uzbekistan, Kyrgistan, Tajikistan and other whateverstans. Ukraine is worse off than Russia and that's saying something.
3) These graduates aren't good. You all know about problems in American educational system, but in Ukraine (and other CIS countries) people who graduate from schools are often simply functionally illiterate. They are just going through the motions without actually learning or understanding anything. You may think cheating and grade inflation became problems in the US. You aint's seen nothing until you visit CIS. These 50000 graduates are really bad programmers (ditto for 100000 in Russia).
4) Obviously, with such a huge pool of programmers there are bound to be some who are really great. That's why Russia wins so many programming competitions. This doesn't mean that the other 99.9% of programmers are any good. So forget the stereotypes. Ukrainian/Russian programmers suck.
5) You need good management to do this kind of business and the business education in Ukraine is basically as bad as IT education.
6) Ukraine doesn't have good image abroad and noone really does anything to change it, so it would be hard to persuade the prospecting clients.

So the only possible result is that the IT industry in Ukraine will remain quite small and insignificant in the international market. Sad, but true. Ditto for Russia.

1337 h4x0r must be the same

Although written with the Ukrainian alphabet...

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Re:Corruption

Well, the fact is, corruption is a matter of fact in large parts of the world.

India is among the quite corrupt contries, like number 90 of 146 in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2004 http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2004/cpi2004.en.ht ml#cpi2004 [transparency.org]

So corruption it itself does not seem to be able to stop tech-business, though Ukraine is way lower at #122.

Re:Virus Programmers

In the case of "the Dakotahs", it is correct to use this reference, since the Dakotas refers to both North and South Dakota. this term "the Dakotas" originates from when the location was a territory known as the Dakota Territory. The name of Dakota Territory came from the large group of Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota Indians from the region. The term "the Dakotas" is fairly accurate, since the general layout, topography, and climate is fairly similar between the two states.

By the way, South Dakota is a big tourist location for a reason, the geography has much to offer, from the rolling planes, to the Badlands (desert), to the Black Hills. (Also of note: The Black Hills hold significant religious value to the Dakota Native Americans.)

more info here: Wikipedia on the term Dakotas [wikipedia.org]

Re:ASK SLASHDOT: What language to learn

If you're American, then you should learn Spanish because it's your countrie's second language.

If you're Canadian, then you should learn French because it's your countrie's second language.

If you are only interested in getting the college elective requirement satisfied, then go with French or Spanish because half of the words are the same as in English. German has a lot of simple words that are the same as English, but it gets really difficult after the first semester.

Any other language is far too much a pain in the ass to fool with. There will always be someone around that knows some English if you go to these places.

If you're a young male American, then whatever you do, don't study Arabic! You'll be the first one drafted after all the National Guard 35-year-old, weekend-warriors, '$150 extra a month and one weekend playing Rambo in the woods' people are returned home from their 'service' in the never-to-end Iraqi War.

All in all, take French. Even if you hate the French, it's still an easy language to study in order to get the college elective requirement done with. Second best choice would be Spanish, because you'll actually be able to talk to people after college. It will be real handy if there are no jobs when you get out of college and have to go work at the Burger King. Or want to go someplace really cheap to live that's warm and doesn't have psychotic police always shaking you down.

Re:ASK SLASHDOT: What language to learn

Everyone in Ukraine speaks Russian, many of them don't speak Ukrainian; this is because the Ukrainian language was surpressed during the Soviet era. So learning Russian makes much more sense especially because you can speak it in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and it's also fairly well known in many of the former Soviet satellites. Knowing it will also give a big head start for learning any of the Slavic languages. However, it's extremely difficult to learn, from my limited experience studying it.

German is a good language to know in Europe, but it's usefulness doesn't go much beyond the German speaking countries. You might also want to consider Portuguese, knowing it would be useful for learning any of the romance languages later.

Re:I rolled 6 sixes!

"But in the end, the US never "takes" anything even though it could."

Except, you know... half of Mexico.

Of course, we only took the unpopulated half, because we didn't want all those Mexicans in our country. The parts that we took that were popluated had to wait until the majority of the people living there (or at least the territorial government) were white and spoke English before they were allowed statehood, kind of like Hawaii only not quite as ugly/blatant.

Re:I rolled 6 sixes!

Speaking as a fellow Californian, you're full of shit. California was never "emptied" of Mexicans. Hispanic people have lived continuously in California since the days when the missions were founded.

What's funny is that most of the anti-immigration people are probably descendants of the Oakies, the refugees from the dust bowl. I guess being poor white trash isn't so bad when you have someone you can treat like a nigger.

Re:ASK SLASHDOT: What language to learn

Learn Russian. People who live on Ukraine typically speak Russian or Polish better than Ukrainian. And most of Ukrainian programmers know Russian. Because there are a lot more technical literature published in Russian than in the Ukrainian.

Ukrainian language is more or less invention of nationalists politics from West Ukraine. And most educated people are located in the East part (Kharkov region) where Russian was always native language.

Re:ASK SLASHDOT: What language to learn

Learn Russian. People who live on Ukraine typically speak Russian or Polish better than Ukrainian.

This is not quite right. It depends on where you are and whom you hang around with, and there is a large Russian-language minority, but still Ukrainian is the majority language in Ukraine. And you're completely wrong about the Polish; even in the West Ukraine, the dialects of Ukrainian are not mutually intelligible with Polish at all, even though they share some features.

And most of Ukrainian programmers know Russian. Because there are a lot more technical literature published in Russian than in the Ukrainian.

That's true. Which is why I'd agree with you and recommend learning Russian; most Ukrainians tend to speak it, even if many of them don't particularly love it, and generally Russian is a much more useful language in the world than Ukrainian, because you can use it in Russia, too.

Ukrainian language is more or less invention of nationalists politics from West Ukraine.

This, again, is completely wrong. In debunking Ukrainian nationalism as a whole, you're spreading another nationalist myth, from Russia this time. (Since I'm neither Ukrainian nor Russian, I think I can say this.)

Ukrainian is an East Slavic language of its own. Dialects from East Ukraine are mutually intelligible with Russian to some extent. I've learned Russian as a foreign language (I'm German), and when I listen to Ukrainian speakers from East Ukraine, I understand about a third.

However, literary Ukrainian is far less close to Russian, and I don't understand it as easily. The literary language is also quite old; the first grammar of Ukrainian was published well in the 1830s (about twenty years after the first modern grammar of Russian), and the center of Ukrainian nationalism in the early 19th century was Kharkiv (or Kharkov in Russian), not the Polish-influenced West.

And most educated people are located in the East part (Kharkov region) where Russian was always native language.

Wrong again; the center of education is probably the capital, Kyiv (Kiev in Russian), which is in an Ukrainian-speaking region, and Lviv in the far west has an extremely good university. Even in the East, Russian isn't and wasn't "always" native language everywhere; my girlfriend is from Dnepopetrovsk, which is about as far east as it gets, and she's a native speaker of Ukrainian.

Re:ASK SLASHDOT: What language to learn

I need to pick up a foreign language elective. Should I learn Russian, Ukrainian, German, or another? (note: not French, Spanish, or Italian. I hate everyone who speaks those)

Pick the one with hot babes that you like. Nothing motivates learning like the possibility of a sleeping dictonary.

Re:Virus Programmers

Yes, but we say "the Piedmont" and "the Rockies" and "the Dakotahs" and "the North Slope" to name a few. Ukrainians telling us how to speak English is just another example of the hyper-sensitive Eastern European inferiority complex.

You can stick to saying "the Ukraine" all you want, but most travel guides, wire services, government publications, and academic works written over the last ten years already just say "Ukraine". Have fun living in an anachronistic world.

Re:I rolled 6 sixes!

Yeah, and I suppose the entire continental US automatically came into possession of some polgrims from the Mayflower? And I guess the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Panama were a real threat to our way of life?