Let’s read the words, the words, the words, of the developer

Introduction

When working with Indian developers, their English skills can vary. You also need to be aware of certain words exclusive to Indian English; some of which I actually like. For example they have the word “prepone” which is the opposite of “postpone”, but in UK English, we don’t seem to have a single word for that.

Some phrases seem more like poor grammar. An example of that is “Can able” or “Can’t able” when we would say “I’m able/unable”.

“i think you can able to see the second image is it?”
“I can’t able to find any relationship between those two codes”
“still we can’t able to recreate the issue”

“For the same” is an interesting phrase because it just refers to something earlier in the sentence without having much meaning. It’s similar to when they say “do the needful” which just means “do whatever is required” but often doesn’t really add anything to the instruction; if they have requested something from you, then surely you will do it if you can.

There’s a few strange greetings like saying “good noon” which I’d assume is just a shortened version of “good afternoon” rather than being appropriate for a very specific time period. There’s a few people that have a strange greeting of “Ho!”

“Ho!! Is it please can you share those knowledge with me…”

To take time off, they like to “avail”. As a bonus, here’s a strange requests:

Morning Team,
I have picked up fever and heavy cold. Availing AL today.
 Please conduct stand up and end call.
Available over mobile for any urgent issues.
Thanks and Regards,
Jeeva

I’m glad you told me to end the call Jeeva, because I’d have stayed on it all day otherwise.

Indian Pull Requests

When it comes to the Code Review process aka Pull Requests (PRs), it can be hard to ask them why they are making certain changes. Sometimes asking questions can just lead to further confusion. Also, sometimes I’m sure some developers try to blag and hope you move on.

I was discussing this with a Lead Developer and he agreed that asking questions can either result in

Blagging
Revert the code and hope it works
Or you actually get a good answer. But then if it’s not clear why the code was written like that, then maybe it does need a code comment or some documentation so others don’t get confused in future.

Even though I often got frustrated with their comments, in recent times, a lot of them use AI like ChatGPT to rewrite their responses, or sometimes I get the impression they just put your question into the AI and hope it comes out with a good response. So instead of poorly written English, it’s all robotic and a blag of jargon. So you can’t win really.

Row

“Refresh on special while saving special note, row background, Radio button alignment based on include exclude”

Blagging with Words on PRs

I questioned their pointless try/catch blocks which were catching an exception then rethrowing the exact same type of exception.

“Yes, as I couldnt use the dll in the resourcepicker project, so we can thrown the exception and catched it in resourcepicker class”

And

“The resources can be used due to filecahe, but no changes can be saved, when service is down. The above message is already used in Picker solution.”

Then when their project was being merged into the main branch, another developer questioned the same code. This time they said:

“To restrict that, have drilled up the ux tree and displayed the error message.”

Observation

“Found an observation while testing 12602 in 9.3.6 branch”

what does that even mean? I assume “observation” means “bug” or “potential problem”.

Bad Refactoring

He refactors some existing codec but also changes the return type of the method, which means the caller’s logic will have to be changed so was causing cascading changes which weren’t really relevant to his main change. Also, the logic didn’t look equivalent so I wouldn’t call it refactoring:, more like introducing a bug. He then claims he hasn’t changed it…

Me: "is this equivalent? It was checking >1 not >=1"
Them: "Actually, I haven't attempted to modify that as the logic written working as per acceptance criteria, and it already tested"
Me: "I don't understand, this method has been changed in this PR"
Them: "Just used expression for methods as commented by Andy. Apart from that i haven't changed any logic around that."

Down Merge

Vignesh
Here after no comments fixed against assurance branch?
Just need information about down merge
 
Andy:
sorry I'm not sure what you mean?
 
Vignesh
Two comments pending for our side... if any one raise PR I will raise PR also. Because of down merge... Incase only I will raise PR again do down merge that's why I am asking

IsMobileEnabled

IsMobileEnabled needs to return boolean value, so removed exception caused by null and also the GetResources during Trigger prompting needs to include Template also along with Protocols.

Didn’t Launch The Portal

me: “where is this used?”

developer: “This is used at TryLaunchPortal()…. At this point of time we never know the portal type to compare and verify the condition because the user didn’t launch any portal“

walkie talkie comms going on here

This reminds me of walkie-talkies, stating “over” so you know it’s the end of the message.

Roshni 
give line break after method over
 
Shoban
Ok Roshni, Updated the changes
 
Shoban
Completed with the Changes
 
Roshni 
give line break after method over not before the method over
 
Shoban
Thanks Roshni, Got your point. Made Changes
 
Roshni 
and again please remove the empty line no 267
 
Shoban
Code changes completed as mentioned

Welsh

PR: Updated the Walsh text

Description: Updated the resource file with Walesh text

Do you think the text is gonna be accurate if he can’t get the title correct in English? It should say “Welsh text” as in “the Welsh language”.

Customer

Merge from Curomer first branch to main

Accelerator Keys

To define an accelerator key (allows you to use Alt key to select it), you place an & character before the letter. So Export has E defined. Edit can’t use E because Export has taken it, so they have chosen D. Cancel seemed an odd choice of N.

btnBackup.Text = "&Export";
btnContinue.Text = "E&dit";
btnCancel.Text = "Ca&ncel";
btnBackup.DialogResult = DialogResult.None;

Me
can't C be used as an accelerator key?
 
Kalyanaraman
C for Continue
 
Me
what is the continue button? Isn't this it? btnContinue.Text = "E&dit"; that is using D

SQL is up to 10 times better

yes i have tried with mocked 10 lacks data in local
and while this query the data was well optimized.
For data, I ran sp thrice

I bet you can’t tell if this is from some old children’s folk tale or an Indian’s PR

Indian Imports

Years ago, we were told that for GDPR (or for some other legal reason), we would always need staff in the UK so we can access data from the production database.

All the staff we hired in India would never be allowed access.

However, my employer once bought a house over the road from the office then allowed Indians to stay there for a few months. So they paid for the flight, Visa, all expenses accommodation to work in the UK for a bit. There was a rumour they could then access production databases but I’m not sure that is true because we have to have a DBS check to ensure we don’t have a criminal record.

Another colleague reckoned we brought them over because if you don’t promise Indians a chance to work in the UK, they will go work for an employer that does offer that. Once they have had their UK trip though, what incentive do they have to stay? Can’t they go work for someone else and get another free holiday?

An annoying aspect of it, is that it was still going on when we were going through a redundancy process, and yet they were trying to assure us the Indians weren’t taking our jobs. I did wonder what the cost was to employ them and pay for their brief UK stay. Kinda seems a hassle to organise as well.

I’m convinced I posted this before, but this was from Colin who shared his screen with an open spreadsheet of people’s wages.

Name	Role	Rupees	Yearly Salary £
Prasanth	Graduate Trainee	500000	4,295.00
Saranya	Software Engineer	650000	5,583.50
Hemalatha	Test Engineer	600000	5,154.00
Vinitha	Junior Software Engineer	700000	6,013.00
Vignesh	Software Engineer	1000000	8,590.00
Padmasri	Junior Software Engineer	650000	5,583.50
Hebsi	Software Engineer	1400000	12,026.00
Shoban	Software Engineer	800000	6,872.00

It’s crazy how much money is saved by hiring Indians. They have definitely taken our jobs over the years.

Indian Expo

Recently, I blogged about how managers love any excuse to go to India to visit our office over there. Then they write a blog on their experience, stating how important it is for face-to-face collaboration in an office environment… before returning to the UK and telling us how working remotely from home is the modern way of working, and has no impact on efficiency.

They actually spend most of their blog writing about the local cuisine and the landmarks they saw; so it’s definitely a holiday and not a work trip at all.

I also wrote about The Expo, which is where the entire UK side of the company travelled to one location to watch many in-person presentations (which we could have just watched remotely like we normally do). Then when it is “business as usual“, managers are telling us to find ways to save money, and how we want to become a carbon-neutral business.

So after dumping loads of money into travel costs, hotel expenses, venue hire and catering for the Expo in the UK, they decide it would only be fair to host a similar thing in India… which means getting all the directors and senior managers to fly over there to do the presentations.

Obviously they used the opportunity to post a blog about the importance of face-to-face collaboration, Indian landmarks and cuisine.

Key phrases from their blog are as follows:

The India Office

“I am amazed at how much we were able to accomplish”
“India greeted us with its vibrant energy and diverse cultural heritage”
“The workspace was a fantastic environment, promoting team collaboration and productivity”
“Witnessing the teams working closely together was inspiring, and the entire place was abuzz with creativity and a real growth mindset”
“The office boasted excellent facilities, including communal work areas, private group session rooms, a gym, nap rooms, massage chairs, a food court, and garden”.

Expo Day:

“The Expo day itself was an exhilarating experience, with a buzzing atmosphere and a large number of attendees”

“Representing the team on the stands was a humbling experience, as engagement levels were high and the audience had a deep understanding of our work, asking probing questions around aspects of safety, governance and our products.”

Cultural Experiences:

Visiting the UNESCO heritage site at Mahabalipuram allowed us to witness the interplay between Hindu, Chinese, and Roman architectural styles in this historic trade centre.
Learning about the story of Draupadi and understanding the long history of international collaboration.
Our visit to DakshinaChitra cultural heritage site, highlighted the vastness of South India and its rich diversity.
Meeting the skilled craftsmen and hearing them describe their trades first-hand provided a deeper appreciation for the diversity of people and their skills across the country.
We learned about different rice and cooking methods for Biryani, and the amazing flavoursome vegetarian dish suggestions.

Managers visiting India

In recent times, our HR Director reiterated that for UK workers, there are no plans to return to the office and we will continue to work at home. However, our Indian workforce will be. It sounded like it was some government-mandated thing.

I suppose it is great news for managers and directors because they love making any excuse to go over there for a week for “work” then post about the sights and local cuisine.

Days after the HR Director had spoken about how “home-working was the way forward for the company”:

“Caroline and I had a long chat when we were back at the hotel and talked about what we had learnt so far this week. We both concluded we need to have more fun at work, see people face-to-face more often and continue to have new experiences as that helps with personal growth.”
HR Director

How does she not realise the hypocrisy of her statement? It wouldn’t surprise me if she u-turned and told us to go back to the office.

Meanwhile the CTO finally realises developers are actually important (whilst sampling the local cuisine, of course):

“One of the highlights of my trip was getting to know the team on a more personal level, through lunches, dinners, and working sessions. I have come away from the trip with a newfound appreciation for the vital role that our developers play in our company’s success, and for the amazing work that they do every day.”
CTO

How can you be one of the leads for the Development department and not realise that software developers are the key part of a company that sells software?

I’m sure they mean well, but the more you think about it, the worse it seems. It also seems like he appreciates the Indian workforce more than the English ones.

Colin: How was their visit?
Jeeva: "They are very busy, we got 6 minutes of their time”.

Why so specific? I wonder if that is a cultural thing. Indian’s seem to do it with job experience. Us English just round up or down to the nearest half-year, but they like saying they have “2.2 years of C# experience”.