Coders in Orbit?

Having run one of these offshore programming projects,
I'd have to agree the software dev is going to be
earthside for a looong time. That does not preclude
people with programming backgrounds going into space.
It just means that it is easier to get a room full of
people to brainstorm solutions here on earth, code it,
test it, and ship it. Simple configuration and site
testing will be done in space. Anything more than
that and you are not being cost effective.

- Thor

Software is notorious for being outsourced to cheap
third world countries because of the low cost of
telecomms and the internet.

Not only is it much cheaper to do most everything on
Earth than in space, since software weighs nothing at
all the transportation costs
are basically nil.

So I predict that the software maintenance for
Island-One will be performed by outsourcing shops,
most likely in Bangalore (India), or
possibly Hyderabad. CIS and east Europe also have
highly skilled coders working at low rates, but they
do not know English as well as
the folks in India.

Patches would be uploaded via the Inteprlanetary
Internet (IPN), which is already in operation around
Mars even as I type this.

There will need to be system administrators on site in
space to reboot the hardware, install the patches and
stuff. Most of the software development will be done
Earthside, and in cheap labor
market locations.

--- In ssi_list@... Ryan Z
> As an occupation, I don't think that the role of
coder only will be viable in orbit right away. One of
the reasons I say this is that initially, you will
need mostly worry about embedded software. For this,
the