not just random

Besides a web presence with rather limited functionality and usability, SeaCode does not have much to show yet. Disregarding quite a bit of coverage in the recent media.

Interesting: A link on their website to one of those press notes:

Take a used cruise ship, plant it in international waters three miles off the coast of El Segundo, near Los Angeles, people it with 600 of the brightest software engineers they can find around the world (both men and women), and run a 24-hour-a-day programming shop, thereby avoiding H-1B visa hassles while still exploiting offshore labor cost arbitrage and completing development projects in half the time they’d take onshore or offshore.

And:

Before you think, “sweat-ship,�? hear them out. These workers, they say, will each have private rooms with baths, meal service, laundry service, housekeeping and access to on-board leisure-time activities. Picture the Love Boat with a timecard. Staff can make the three-mile voyage into town in their off hours by calling a water taxi. Or they can spend time shopping in the on-board duty-free shop.

“Engineers can be kind of quirky in some ways, but they can be really productive if you give them the right setting,” says Mr. Green. “We think we’re going to be putting them in the perfect setting. Very few distractions. They’ll be with similarly motivated people who are really interested in advancing and doing this engineering work. It’ll be this perfect place for getting engineers to work.”

Half the developers will have the day shift and half will have the night shift. “But they’ll probably meet in the middle and chit-chat,” says Mr. Green.

So … we’re talking about a floating code factory for people who cannot possibly hope to have lives.

Here is a nice discussion on this.