[pretoriusB]

>Some of these programmers are terrible. Some are awesome. I dare say, just like in NYC? :)

Only with a different percentage of terrible and awesome.

>Do all Indian/Pakistani/Egyptian/etc. hackers deserve to be painted with the same brush?

No, of course there are great Indian/Pakistani/etc programmers.

But generalising is not about being fair or accurate.

Generalisation is a compromise between being accurate and making a decision in time.

It's about being accurate _enough_ to make decisions as correct as possible without getting lost in the minutiae.

And the reason people generalise about Indian/etc programmers is because they have been burned a lot of times by them (and not as many times by NYC programmers).

If I had a nickel for every "please sir, solve my programming problem from me" type by an Indian programmer in an internet forum I would be rich. And a lot of those posters are not kids in school. They openly admit they work for a company, programming.

[kamelot]

Agree with you that generalizations are statistical. However, that does not condone them. I don't want to take up racial examples, stereotypes don't help communities. Nuanced debate and constructive debate does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization

Perhaps the OP would have been better taking a less inflammatory and more rounded approach to low-cost economies, contributing in a global economy. I would have no beef with that.

But yes, sensationalism, and awkward generalizations sells. :)

[rhizome]

What does it mean to "condone" a calculation?