为什么日本在软件方面不如其在硬件方面般出类拔萃？

正文翻译

Why doesn’t Japan excel in software as they did in hardware?

为什么日本在软件方面不如其在硬件方面般出类拔萃？

评论翻译
Yumashish Subba
, Software Developer
Ah… Finally. My time has come.
Where to begin?
In Japan software development is not held to the same standard as other engineering positions.
Japan has always had a custom where every year, new university graduates in their thousands march through giant career fairs searching for a job. This is something I call the March of the Penguins – every one of them is adorned with a new black suit with a pristine white shirt.
There the companies will take their resumes, interview them and perhaps extend an invitation to the next interview. None of these companies care about what you studied or what your passions are. They might perk up if they hear that you are from one of the top flight schools (Todai, Keio, Waseda, Tokyo Tech et al).
The whole idea here is that everything you need to know about doing your job will be taught to you.
Now I know people working at somewhat (emphasis on somewhat) internationalized companies like Mercari or Rakuten (the Japanese eBay and Amazon respectively) will tell you that this is not how tech companies hire.
The sad truth is that they do. While there are enough foreigners who will stand up to being told to hire and train clueless graduates and mold them into proper software developers in more international companies – the huge majority of software development firms don’t operate like that.
Naturally, many Japanese software development firms have engineering teams of pitiful quality.
Software development is looked at as any other skill that can be picked up in a few months to a year: accounting, secretarial work, project management, business analysis etc.
They don’t speak English
Naturally when you cannot read or speak English, the tools you use to develop software as well as the methods you use to develop them will be those that have managed to percolate downwards from English sources due to the magnanimity of people willing to volunteer their time to translate documentation and articles.
At any given time, the cutting edge of software development in Japan is 6 months to 7 years behind the rest of the world.
Software development is a reversed pyramid scheme
Most technology consulting firms who are awarded contracts do not actually have developers – or have only a handful at hand. They will sub-contract their work to firms down the totem pole who will in turn sub-sub-contract their work to a lesser firm.
The actual developer working on your product could be a sub-contract 5 contract levels removed from you.
Good luck managing changes in business requirements.
All this works because the people who award the contracts are as technologically illiterate as the ones proposing them. If there ever was an apropos time to use the word circlejerk this would be it.
Consumers have extremely conservative tastes
Anyone asking this question by now will have seen the absolutely antediluvian website designs that are still being employed by Japanese firms. (Behold the largest online travel agency site in Japan: www.jalan.net).
We have actually done user testing and A/B testing with non-trivial sample sizes.
Japanese websites don’t look like trash because the designers wanted to do this. They look this way because the Japanese audiences like this. They like the huge and distracting flashing banners. They like the overwhelming amount of text. They like what you and I might call crass and unpolished advertising masquerading as website content.
So you can either create modern designs that will bring in international attention, but alienate domestic users, or serve your existing customers as you have been doing for decades.
That’s an easy choice for many companies.

啊哈……终于，轮到我来秀了。
从哪里开始呢？
1 在日本，软件开发与其他工程职位的标准不同。
日本一直有一种习俗，每年成千上万的新大学毕业生通过巨大的招聘会寻找工作。这被我称之为“企鹅游行”——每个人都穿着一件新的黑色西装和一件质朴的白衬衫。
在那里，公司会收下他们的简历，对他们进行面试，也许会发出参加下一次面试的邀请。这些公司都不关心你学过什么，或者你的激情在哪些方面。如果他们听到你是来自顶级学校（东大、庆应、早稻田、东京理工等），他们可能会兴奋起来。
这里的整个想法是，你需要知道的关于做你的工作的一切都将被教给你。
现在，我知道在Mercari或Rakuten（分别是日本的eBay和亚马逊）等有点（强调：有点）国际化的公司工作的人将告诉你，这不是科技公司的招聘方式。
可悲的是，他们确实如此。虽然有足够多的外国人会站出来告诉你，在更多的国际公司中，雇用和培训毫无头绪的毕业生，把他们塑造成合适的软件开发人员–但绝大多数的软件开发公司并不是这样运作的。
自然，许多日本软件开发公司的工程团队的素质也很差。
软件开发被看作是可以在几个月到一年内掌握的任意其他技能：会计、秘书工作、项目管理、商业分析等等。
2 他们不会说英语
当你不能读或说英语时，你用来开发软件的工具以及你用来开发软件的方法自然是那些愿意自愿花时间翻译文件和文章的宽宏大量的人设法从英语来源渗透下来的。
在任何时候，日本的软件开发前沿都要比世界其他地方落后6个月到7年。
3 软件开发是一个反向的金字塔计划
大多数获得合同的技术咨询公司实际上并没有开发人员–或者手头只有少数几个。他们会把工作分包给图腾柱下的公司，这些公司又会把工作分包给更小的公司。
在你的产品上工作的实际开发人员可能是一个与你相差5个合同级别的分包商。
祝你在管理业务需求变化方面好运。
之所以所有这些行得通，是因为授予合同的人和提出合同的人一样都是技术上的文盲。如果有一个合适的时间来使用”小圈子”这个词，那就是在这个时候用。
4 消费者的口味极其保守
任何问到这个问题的人现在都会看到日本公司仍在使用的绝对“前卫”的网站设计。(请看日本最大的在线旅行社网站：www.jalan.net）。

我们实际上已经用非平凡的样本量进行了用户测试和 A/B 测试。
日本的网站看起来像垃圾，并不是因为设计师想这么做。它们看起来像这样，是因为日本的受众喜欢这样。他们喜欢巨大的、令人分心的闪烁的横幅。他们喜欢铺天盖地的文字。他们喜欢你和我可能称之为伪装成网站内容的粗俗和不加修饰的广告。
因此，你要么创造出能带来国际关注的现代设计，但疏远国内用户，要么像你几十年来一直做的那样为你的现有的客户服务。
这对许多公司来说都是一个简单的选择。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Dan Lenski
Interesting answer!
Regarding Japanese consumers’ taste in websites… you wrote that Japanese consumers prefer crass/loud websites. That certainly comports with the Japanese websites I’ve seen, but do you think it is really those consumers’ preference, or just what they’ve become accustomed to?
It’s confusing to me because Japanese people seem to generally have tastes that I’d describe as rather minimalist and subtle in many areas: restaurant decor, hotel rooms, parks, gardens, museums, menus, clothing…
It seems to be only in advertising and commercial sites (whether online or real-world) that Japan prefers loud and garish things. Why is that? ˉ\\\\_(ツ)_/ˉ

有意思的答案!
关于日本消费者对网站的品味……你写道，日本消费者更喜欢粗俗/花哨的网站。这当然与我所看到的日本网站相吻合，但你认为这真的是这些消费者的偏好，还是只是他们已经习惯了的东西？
这让我很困惑，因为日本人的品味似乎一般都很简约，在许多领域都很含蓄：餐厅装饰、酒店房间、公园、花园、博物馆、菜单、服装……
似乎只有在广告和商业网站（无论是在线还是现实世界）中，日本人更喜欢响亮和花哨的东西。这是为什么呢？ˉ\\\\_(ツ)_/ˉ
Thorsten Schmidt
I think the idea that Japanese people prefer “minimalist and subtle” things is based on hearsay and myths. If you live in Japan, you will understand that people who like these things are a small niche minority, similar to how there might be a niche minority of connoisseurs of 18th century Icelandic literature in the US.
Just walk through any Japanese city, browse department stores, supermarkets, watch any Japanese TV channel, go to any Hotel etc. etc. – you will find that loud and garish things are the norm, especially compared to Western Europe.
The image of “minimal an subtle Japanese culture” is basically limited Western travel magazines or coffee table books that cater to the this mythical image of Japan but is not reality. It is a way to “sell” Japan because that’s what Western people’s escapist dream of Japan is. But nothing more.

我认为日本人喜欢”简约而微妙”的东西的想法是一种道听途说和神话。如果你生活在日本，你就会明白，喜欢这些东西的人是一个小众的少数，类似于在美国可能有一个小众的18世纪冰岛文学的鉴赏家群体。
只要走过任何一个日本城市，逛逛百货商店和超市，看任何一个日本电视频道，去任何一家酒店，等等 – – 你会发现，喧闹和花哨的东西是常态，特别是与西欧相比。
“极简微妙的日本文化”的形象基本上仅限于西方的旅游杂志或咖啡桌书籍，它们迎合了日本的这种神话般的形象，但这并不是现实。这是一种”推销”日本的方式，因为这就是西方人对日本的逃避主义梦想。但仅此而已。

来源：龙腾网看世界