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Description of different developer mindsets when they encounter a problem with a tool from a vendor.

Americans: contact the vendor and report the issue. Then wait for the vendor to fix it, applying pressure as needed. Because of the delay, the product ends up being 6 months late, but then it works reliably.

Russians: curse the vendor, then use undocumented APIs and live code patching to work around the bug. The vendor is never told about the issues. The product is released on time, but it breaks in 1 year when the vendor makes an incompatible change that breaks the workarounds.

This mindset is very much a result of centuries of having to work around the government that is seen more as an occupying force rather than the will of the people. And it's very helpful when you're doing security research.

Incidentally, Jewish people also excel in security due to a similar cultural mindset.

by drysine12 hours ago|

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>This mindset is very much a result of centuries of having to work around the government that is seen more as an occupying force rather than the will of the people.

How do you people come up with such stories?

by ricardobayes1 hours ago|

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This trope is very widely documented in Russian literature, in fact it's one of the "corner truth" of Russian existence.

Checkov, Gogol, Pushkin and Dostoyevsky all wrote novels with this exact plot, because it was so lifelike and tangible for all Russians (Soviets) to understand. If you're interested, check out The Bronze Horseman, The Overcoat, or Poor Folk.

by drysine3 minutes ago|

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Thank you for being familiar with Russian culture, but I don't remember these classics writing about casual link between oppression, suffering, depression and hacker mindset.

Me and cyberax are both Russians, except I never wanted to emigrate

by shikshake11 hours ago|

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Hackernews thrives on users confidently making claims based on their own limited perspective and providing next to no reasoning or evidence.

by dsign10 hours ago|

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I can't say anything about the "centuries" part, but the rest sort of checks. In those old soviet countries there was no such thing as "customer service", the politburo didn't get around inventing it and every economic cog was created from above. If a modern American had seen how things were done there, they would have wrongly assumed that a powerful pulp-and-paper lobby was in control. Also, when the thing in question was made in the West (which was often the case for high tech stuff), and somehow smuggled under the iron curtain and Western sanctions, customer support was unaffordable or simply out of reach.

by cyberax11 hours ago|

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I don't know... Maybe by growing up in Russia and starting my software career there?

To add some color, here is my favorite hard-to-translate idiom in a Russian developer community:

"File away rough edges" ("доработать напильником") - adjust something to work in a way that its original creator never even realized is possible. And usually for a good reason.

Of course, all generalizations should be taken with a grain of salt. They can never be used to judge individuals or even individual companies.

by drysine8 hours ago|

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I still don't see how the government comes into play