<HTML><HEAD></HEAD>
<BODY dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000">
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>This
is a good conversation.</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>The
last paragraph is the nub of it to me – is there more as a local Delphi
community and developers we could be doing to improve the eco-system and
computer literacy and quality of intellectual thinking?</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>The
IT industry is no place for complacency – I do wonder at times if in NZ we do
believe too much we do better than elsewhere. Certainly Kiwis do a
lot with minimal resources, but we do not always do
better. After all Silicon Valley originated in Stanford, and not
here.</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>[going
only a bit off-topic]</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>I
spent time recently in Stockholm and UK, and one of the overarching impressions
was how far below those countries NZ is in intellectual pursuits of all kinds –
reflected in general conversation, level of political debate, quality of
university education, even the quality of TV which is vastly superior
there. For example BBC 4 will often show 4 quality documentaries in
a row. Whereas NZ boxes above its weight, a country like Sweden has
only 8 million population and a vastly deeper engineering and intellectual
culture – eClassic.com, Spotify, Skype, Volvo, Saab, Bofors, etc were all born
there.</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>Its
a particularly poignant point to Christchurch residents who are watching their
city being rebuilt and hoping against hope that the stupid mistakes of the past
are not repeated when we could build a really quality city.</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>For
a salutary look at how well other cultures can do things – here is a video that
went viral on Youtube </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>“Stockholm
its not a coincidence”</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'><A
title=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAkdWUjdJyA
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAkdWUjdJyA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAkdWUjdJyA</A></DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>also
how to do city transport - meant to bug anyone in any major NZ city:</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'><A
title=http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/short-film-amsterdam-will-blow-your-mind-video.html
href="http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/short-film-amsterdam-will-blow-your-mind-video.html">http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/short-film-amsterdam-will-blow-your-mind-video.html</A></DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ">
<UL>
<LI><SPAN>Right back to the original question specifically – is there
a shortage for essential Delphi skills in NZ compared to Oz and
Switzerland? What is lacking – training/size of talent
pool/non-intellectual focussed culture/lack of or quality of IT industry
training/Delphi community being less lively
etc?</SPAN></LI></UL></DIV></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">There is a lack of developers here. The ones
that are more senior are happy in their current roles. Many have moved one to
other languages or into management. Which is what I've been doing recently as
well, but I still enjoy writing code. Also a lot of developers seem to come from
one or two people teams that do everything, so introducing them to procedures,
peer review, source control can be an interesting experience
:-)</FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>