i want someone out there to tell me where we are right now in software technology. are we like indian or canada?or like chad. lets discuss the way forward in software technology.

Well it is actually not yet time to compare ourselves with India,Japan or Canada. I believe we are still a little bit immature for comparism.
All I know is that we have very good programmers that are not encouraged by the market and most of the time sell their softwares to international companies and another sad tale is the problem of piract in Nigeria.
Thanks to the "OTIGBA" people they made softwares affordable in Nigeria but this is now having a back drop on indigenous programmers.

@dasersoft
Are u a software engineer yourself and what has been your contribution to the software industry in Nigeria.

Nigerian software industry should encourage local content software developers. If not all programmers will start to loose interest in programming and go after the money in banks, oils and telecoms where no much programming is.

well as a software developer i am facing the problems you guys have discussed so far but i dont think there is any need for relentness. we can collaborate(i mean the nigerian programmers) to embark on collaborative projects which will move the country forward. any programmer out there willing for such effort can spring up something. where are we and where is the way forward? everyone is after the money and all nigerian programmers have gone to the web eventhough it is the fact that we are in the web era but what happens to securities, game industries,service oriented applications,operating system design, compiler design, data mining,complex algorithms. we seems to be satisfied with the change(money) we get from developing sites and nothing more, we seems to leave reading for medical people not knowing that programming requires more of that, since change is the only constant in the programming world we need to move with change. i must tell you many classical visual basic programmers have found it difficult to migrate to vb.net  reason they dont want to change. lets have a change of mind and orientation. the writter is a KERNEL HACKER, an OPEN SOURCE PHILOSOPHER, a CODE POET, a GAME DEVELOPER with the directx technology, a SERVER/CLIENT developer base in the city of JOS. my best operating system is the DEBIAN LINUX DISTRO and best programming language is the native C language. we can do more than that and lets do just that. Nigeria will lead in IT. sure bet.
you can contact me on:
daseronline@yahoo.com.sg
Dasersoft Nigeria.

Gradually we are going to reach the top,

Insha Allah ,

@dasersoft, I couldn't agree more. As if you read my mind

I am available to collaborate on projects. Infact, I have a project in mind but have not had enough time to put it together myself.

well i am happy with you guys but i just threw suggestion in to the house notwithstanding how do we start? lets discuss that. lets build a mirror like sourceforge a kind of all nigeria open source downloads. you guys will have to be patient with me i am a student and my exams is comming up soon so i am up with theories after which we will have time to talk more. am sorry guys i will be thru by 3rd december. so lets discuss on how to go further.

I have a project idea that I would like to get other developers to collaborate with me on just that I would like to have SERIOUS people involved.

Kobojunkie,
i think you've got serious people enough. what have you got? if you are ready then i think we need to xchange emails to commemorate on the project. i think we have got enough good guys in this place that can handle anything you think of. lets know what you've gat man.
dasersoft

It's not just them SAYING they are serious that makes them serious. I have emailed a couple myself in the past and to this day, yet to get any response from over 99%. This is a serious project and needs serious minded developers who are willing to sacrifice their time and effort to work on a project that could potentially be the next big deal.

hi programmers?
for all the open source guys dont you think we need to start up something? i am creating a mirror for our projects to commence soon and after the site is ready we are suppose to have a seminar to lunch the advent of open source technology in Nigeria and to invite dignitories to witness that day.
on that day i propose having a lot of discussions and projects to be started for the Nigerian sake. i will get u posted soon but lets have your opinions. i mean the REAL and REAL open source guys. pls if you claim to be one pls you are counted out.

When you cannot program for 3 hours straight without being interrupted by NEPA, where could Nigeria possibly be?

@kobojunkie

You dont need to be dettered by the unseriousness of some developers all u have to do is to be focused and introduce your ideas to people you think are viable enough.
And I think we have plenty of em on this thread

Will be expecting your project pretty soon

Cool, I am actually putting together a sort of document on it so that when I finally upload it, persons can open and mark interested or not.

@kobojunkie

Nice one,I really appreciate that

But I hope u would be willing enough to bring along the young programmers too,so that they keep up the good work later on.
SO that Nigerian software industry wont just boom just to come down later just like the petrochemicals

Successful open source projects are usually initiated by someone with a clear vision and also the knowledge to set about turning that vision into reality. what i am saying is this,  each and evry one of us has our own idea why not us come together and work things out.

I am down with you guys,

We are not in anyway close to Japan, canada or any of the Asian Tigers but it is only a matter of time, we would certainly get there especially with the rate of interest presently shown by Nigerians to the development in the IT world and government renewed fight against piracy. We would get there,

We are definitely nowhere near the Indian, etc at the moment. However potentially, we are way ahead of these guys. There are programmers in Nigeria who, if given the right environment, will do as well as any programmer in the world and even better. All we have right now are a bunch of curious, creative and forward looking raw talents driven by the power of naira to produce world software. If given the right infrastructure and focus these guys could turn the Nigeria software industry to the envy of the world. A colabo of sort within these combustible intelligence could work some magic. I believe.

Well I must say I am glad to see this topic being discussed in such a manner.

I am a believer in the potentials of the Nigerian programmer because I have worked with Indians, Lebanese, Ukrainian, Russian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and American developers. Every group has a flavor and style they bring into the programmers world and one main thing is their exposure and drive.
Given the right exposure and facilities (software, power-supply, internet) I trust our Naija guys will be at par with the so called great software development nations in no time.
We also have to look at the best practices of software delivery, quality and support. It is a big part of being software programming.
I do not know about the other countries but the edge the Indians have over us is that they share knowledge amongst themselves, but some Nigerians do not want another person to be better than them. It just drives me nuts cos if you do not teach that person, someone else will.

Haba ask ur Government to give conducive environment and scrap all the OTIGBA PIRATED and see Nigerians ruling the work in software development, enough with apple and microsoft

Please the society we found ourselves is the problem of our development

young Java programmer here, willing to be of use, guess it'll help in building me and making me better

need to email me it sha_doughz@yahoo.co.uk

Haba ask your Government to give conducive environment and scrap all the OTIGBA PIRATED and see Nigerians ruling the work in software development, enough with apple and microsoft

Please the society we found ourselves is the problem of our development

Yes the government has a role to play in providing the conducive environment but the local software companies too have to be exposed to best practices. Forget Otigba. Otigba will only provide software that is made for another country and nothing customized for the naija market.
When we started out as a small company developing in Naija in the late mid to late 90's, we were doing things that looked impossible then with FoxPro 3.0 and Basic. When some big foreign software vendors came to naija and could not even customize there products to fit the local naija market, they gave us a chance and we performed. We were collecting big checks then and this was sheer "gragra". There was no way out for us then and we new it, only forward and zeal to succeed. I wish this forum allows mentioning names but I tell you, do your part and the government will have no choice. Things are way better now. Before they would not even listen to you.

Take for instance I worked with a girl in Lebanon that was a Java developer and another pl/sql guy in Argentina and we never saw ourselves before until go-live and we were all able to co-ordinate. The girl in Lebanon, even with the war and fighting completed her tasks in time, huge work that she did. And the guy in Argentina delivered. Coupled with the DBA in India and other guys in Russia that I did not work with directly. All these guys did not wait for Government to come to their aid, they hustled for themselves and wrote powerful codes that made them relevant in the programming world.

Just recently a company was looking for .Net guys to do some work for a big company here in the U.S and they went outsourcing and they got this Indian lady that cannot really compose herself in English well. There are plenty of then like that that we see everyday. SHEER DETERMINATION to succeed.

I can tell you categorically I know of some software companies in Naija that are making over 500 million a year in Naija and they have not even achieved 5% of there potential. All because they do not have a framework for product delivery.

O boy bad guys nothing do una, anyway i think we have young, good & talented programmers. we pray our government keep supporting our local softwares.

Guys what do you think about the E-government thing yar'adua is trying to implement. i think it will be a nice idea as one of the major benefit of E-government is transperency. i pray we 're giving (local developers) the opportunity to implement this because the last time i had something about this i saw i microsoft representative on the forum and to me we the local developers can actually implement it even far better.

No time

hi guys it seems we have a lot of open source guys in Nigeria but the question is how many of them can sit down and compose a bug free c code? what is the perspective of open source philosophy to the african nations. To me i see it as a challenge for the africans to embrace free and open source codes in order to move foward technologically. Enough of that how many guys are ready to work with me? Lets make ourselves available when my mirror site is ready i want to see contributions from my country men this time around. Pls lets move to the challenge, lets speak to the computer to move our country forward. well i think we will soon migrate from nairaland for our open source forum in a week. so guys i will post the site to you soon.
dasersoft

Dasersoft-----I think opensource in Naija is a tall order-----but hey who knows----good luck on that.

reachyusuf-------Men I like what you said but it is not enough.


Programmers in Naija will need the government to have "confidence" in them by the local guys proving their worth. We also need the media to put a lot of stories out there because the government officials still look outside Naija for a lot of stuff. I see a lot of them here (U.S) in exhibitions. So we need exhibitions in Naija, showcasing local content.

reachyusuf---------The Microsoft guy in the e-government forum was probably trying to sell the Microsoft software so that the government does not buy pirated software from the likes of Otigba vendors. No problem with that.
You can never compete with Microsoft------even American and Indian companies tried but no way. You can only complement Microsoft by using the developer tools to write good codes for software that will automate a business process. Then from there opportunities for bigger projects will come.
I have seen a lot of what naija boys can do and I am really impressed. I have seen a lot of good software developed in Naija that are far better than what some Indians can do.

Take for Instance; I hear Oracle ERP applications have already been deployed in some states in Naija. How can you compete with Oracle? Not possible when it comes to scalability. But a local software company in Naija will take forever to write a package that will be better than those applications. How about cost-----now oracle is getting affordable and there a lots of public APIs that can be used for customization. Oracle now has support for not only Java but .net applications.

I read a proposal that originated from Niaja one day for a state government and it was one of the best proposal/demo combos I have seen. The first question I asked the author was "How in the world do you plan on implementing this" the guy gave a good explanation and I tell you it made sense. They wanted to use the latest trick in Niaja which was we deploy, and then we get our money after it is done. Very risky plan but it is okay to use that to penetrate the government. A few weeks later the guy called me and said "ha some guys have come from Oracle USA and the Government is giving them audience. My advice to him was simple; stay on course so that even if Oracle manages to take a big chunk of the project which I predict, he will get some other part which oracle will find it had to customize to fit the local content.

It goes on and on and until when local people in Niaja make a lot of noise on what they can do then I believe change will come, until then it will be a very slow process to achieve the desired success.

Seun:

When you cannot program for 3 hours straight without being interrupted by NEPA, where could Nigeria possibly be?

Well said!

oga 2old4that,

That is not a good excuse that one cannot program for 3 hrs without interuption. Come on------Nepa issue has been there for years and we live with it. so what? where is the dedication to look fo r money and buy a portable generator------i have used trailer battery before with a crude locally made converter in Naija. The guy tried to sell it to CBN in 1997-98------but they crushed him before he even started.

Dedication is the key-------there is always a way out. I know people in Naija that have spent the last 12-13yrs dedicated to this and I know of their success.

I beg lets forget the excuses and look for a work around.

FemiATL----------------------Good one, Stay cool.

No time

The software industry in Nigeria is growing and doing well
http://www.spiralteck.com

@kobojunkie
a programmer to da core!!! whats the game plan, i'm serious if you r serious. folababa@gmail, let me know what we can do together

Check this thread


https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-93536.0.html