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Google to Train 2 Million Indian Android Developers
- ben_jones 10y agoDo you want more Malware apps? Because this is how you get more malware apps.
- akshatpradhan 10y agoAre you suggesting training DOES NOT help reduce risk associated with Malware Apps? If that's what you're saying, then we should throw Secure Development Training and Security Awareness Training out the window for everybody. :)
- grenoire 10y agoNo, he is pointing out that this will lead to more Indian malware applications on the Play Store.
- akshatpradhan 10y agoFrom what I understand, you're saying more Developer Training will lead to more Indian malware apps?
- zo1 10y agoThey are saying that more indian developers doing android development will lead to more indian malware apps.
- strikerj 10y agoAre you saying malware apps are created inadvertently? If anything this would lead to more complex malware apps.
- akshatpradhan 10y ago>If anything this would lead to more complex malware apps. Are you saying that Indians who get trained in Development will consciously become more nefarious and wittingly release more malware? I honestly feel like you can say that about any group of developers in the world. There's bound to be 1 bad actor in every group. That's just security.
- mixedCase 10y ago>become more nefarious Hello this is Pajeet from Microsoft I think your computer crash because you didn't do the reality check.
- mind_heist 10y agoI find your assessment inherently racist,but I would like hear more logical reasoning , if you have any of course. 1.The fact that you could buy neatly stitched Calvin Klein , H&M , GAP or Zara apparel is because some 'Trained and Skilled' bangladeshi tailor is stitching all of those clothes. 2.The fact that you could kick around Adidas, Nike, Puma, Select, Litto, Umbro, Mitre, Micassa, Diadora, Wilsoms and Decathion footballs around is because some 'trained and skilled' person in Sialkot is sitting and making them. 3.The reason you could wear stylish Adidas and Nike shoes is because , some'skilled and trained' vietnamese people in a factory somewhere outside Ho Chi Min City are making them ! I could endlessly add things to this list, which showcases how trained labour from south american countries , Africa , Eastern Europe and other parts of the world make stuff that is sold as 'premium'/'top of the line' products. I am not sure if you understand Globalization and International Trade enough, May be some research in those area might realign your perspective. On a different Note , I am not sure if you might have thought there would be more Malware Apps on the Apple AppStore if there were 2 million more iOS/ Swift Developers. It suggests something about how you perceive Google Vs Apple's Appstore Approval criteria.
- sharemywin 10y agoLogically, if at least one of those 2 million developers releases at least 1 malware app more malware apps will have been release to the play store. Although, they could be arguing that regardless of race introducing a large group of people to introductory training will lead to more "bad" apps if that group doesn't have access to more experienced mentors and/or senior developers especially with regards to security. But, he/she was probably just being racist.
- ben_jones 10y agoNope you were going down the right path. More developers === more malware developers. Combine that with a government that gives no fucks about reports of cybercrime within their borders, and you get a recipe for malware proliferation. But no I'm probably just racist!
- mind_heist 10y ago
- desireco42 10y agoNot all the problems can be solved by training Indian developers. By rule, good developers you get by self-thought guys. Certification is attended by people who might not be as good. So... there. I don't think it is bad per se to have people trained in Android, since there is a lot of Java people in India, I just don't see mobile development going this route.
- sumitgt 10y agoThis is a slightly different scenario. Here, the training is being provided in partnerships with existing universities. The program NPTEL which would carry this course material has a good track record in making quality course material accessible for free in universities and libraries. A typical kid in India harboring dreams of becoming a kick-ass Android developer has to currently deal with the limitations imposed by having a 512 Kbps internet connections. It's impossible frustrating to watch Google IO sessions or download an IDE more than once a month. Programs like these tend to focus on colleges and universities and would lead to better outcomes for everyone involved.
- desireco42 10y agoThen more power to you! :)
- twistedanimator 10y agoThere go the salaries for Android developers...
- tracker1 10y agoI have really mixed feelings about this... We already have a slew of crappy apps on android, and I can't imagine this will really help that. It will create a new pool of cheaper android development shops in India though.
- thesoonerdev 10y agoThe fee for the certification is around $100, which was said to be the filter which prevented frivolous apps from being submitted to the App store. Shouldn't that help?
- Bjorkbat 10y agoPeople still pay $1000+ for someone to make an Android app of questionable quality for them. A one time fee of $100 is nothing by comparison.
- akshatpradhan 10y ago>People still pay $1000+ for someone to make an Android app of questionable quality for them. And if that Android App actually makes money, then you now have leverage to charge a high hourly rate to fix the questionably-made app. Sounds like a win for you.
- letitleak 10y agointentionally bad programmers don't need the certification, just to pay the standard $25 play store fee. I think this program will help the quality of play store iff they can get a lot of people through without sacraficing content, such that their certificates actually matter in the market.
- vemy 10y agoThis could make it easier and cheaper to develop higher quality applications for Android.
- Zigurd 10y ago
- british_india 10y agoGoogle is of course not offering this to American developers. Google is all about undercutting the salaries of Americans--as we saw with the illegal anti-poaching agreement they were busted for, along with all the other tech companies.
- daveloyall 10y agoBetter headline: Two million humans to train Google's new Android Development neural network over next three years /s
- myohan 10y agogoogle is doing the training for you...i am sure someone will capitalize on this big time.
- fredgrott 10y agoactually, its not the doom and gloom you think.. Why? Most Android Devs today spend a lot more time in the android support apis and internals than they did with android 4.0..its developing to the point where there are two classes of android devs, the ones that know the android support lib internals and how to backport and those who do not... Guess which ones the training/certs produce?
- sumitgt 10y agoI'm sorry, but the negativity on this post is just absurd. Why would more Indians getting Android training increase malware apps (as one of the posts here seem to have suggested)? Are you telling me that somehow there is a more-than-average percentage of people in India with malicious intent? Another post here seems to suggest this will increase number of crappy apps on Android. Really? How does better training lead to crappy apps? If there are good quality Android developers in India, I can see it helping the local economy. There's a ton of opportunities to make apps that help in developing economies and not enough quality developers to do it. Not to mention, India is a big potential market for Android phones, once the western markets are saturated. Suggesting that this is something bad is absurd. Sorry for the rant. But I am Indian and take great effort to learn things in depth and write quality software no matter what I'm working on. Stereotyping all Indian devs as makers of crappy software is a little sad.
- Bjorkbat 10y agoWhen I see the word "training", I take it to mean that the people taking part learn just enough to get started, but not really enough to make something of quality. That part requires more self-sacrifice, more learning, and some people do that. But not everyone. Something I get discouraged by is when coding schools lure students by talking about salaries, because the people who are really motivated by that oftentimes don't invest the extra time to get good. They see a quick paycheck, and they signup, they put in just enough work, and then they take off. Maybe they'll put in the extra work because they're still motivated to either make more money or because they genuinely like coding, but this doesn't always happen. In highly industrialized economies I've noticed a lot of people give up when they realize that their training doesn't give them enough to make the money they were hoping for, unless they decide to put in more self-sacrifice. If you live in an economy where the US dollar has more purchasing power, then the money that comes out of basic training might be enough to satisfy people. They got their quick paycheck. They don't have to learn the extra stuff, the stuff that makes you really good. That's where my negativity stems from. I'll admit, just a theory, one that I've come up with to rationalize patterns when people hire me to fix outsourced projects. There's nothing inherently wrong with any country and the software developers that work there. It's a universal human desire to make money relatively painlessly and the disparities between wealth in different economies.
- Bjorkbat 10y agoGood for them. Maybe with 2 million additional Android developers in the global marketplace the Google Play store won't look like a giant malware-riddled dumpster-fire with a small number of actually good apps somehow percolating to the top. ... Or we'll have 2 million more Android developers who take shortcuts, create malware, can't figure out security, and overall turn the Play Store into an even larger dumpster-fire, because I still have nightmares from fixing outsourced projects. Kinda like a softer form of outsourcing-induced PTSD. Overall, I consider this a net positive. Granted, I haven't done Android development in a while (again, dumpster-fire), but the sudden influx of novice developers will spur companies to make an investment in an Android app, the Android app will look / feel awful more than 9 times out of 10, companies will get frustrated, companies will inevitably turn to developers who still have battle scars from having to worry about memory management on image-intensive apps. People like me. Emphasis on net positive. The downside is that the ride never ends.
- douche 10y agoFixing outsourced projects is almost bad enough to induce PTSD. Hey, at least I got my job because my employer had been bitten too many times trying to go the "cheap" route.
- Bjorkbat 10y agoIt would be kinda interesting if someone conducted a study to see how many jobs were created by outsourcing gone wrong.
- fhood 10y ago2 million well trained, motivated devs willing to work for far less than Americans. Now is a good time for android devs to start looking at alternate career paths.
- mc32 10y agoNo, I think this is them wanting to ensure android is the preferred local platform. That anything else is a second alternative. Now, of course, that doesn't mean some devs will not jump and dev for other markets --but remember, like China, this market has huge _yuge_ potential.
- PunchTornado 10y agoAnother one with: immigrants come to steal our jobs; outsourcing move jobs to India; wages will decrease. It doesn't matter that there is no proof for that if it feeds your fears.
- fhood 10y agoHold up there dude. I was mostly joking, and if other people are willing to do a job cheaper that isn't a bad thing. I encourage it.
- Zigurd 10y agoThere is a lot of negativism on this thread about software outsourcing shops in India. I'd like to be the contrarian, but, unfortunately, it seems likely that most of the pessimistic predictions will come true. The main problem I can see with this plan is that high-prestige in-house development organizations like Microsoft, Google, etc. have soaked up all the really good engineers in India. If there are any left, the higher-priced systems integrators have the rest. Cheap, middle sized outsourcing shops make do with the second and third tier. There is a smattering of truly entrepreneurial software development in India, but prestige consciousness and compensation make it hard to break out of these boxes. At best, Google, and the ISVs who use cheap outsourcing, are going to end up with an incrementally better grade of sludge.
- twblalock 10y agoYou seem to assume that there is a fixed-size pool of engineers in India, and that they never change jobs. Engineers can be created through training. Some of them will be just as good as any of the ones who already work at prestigious companies.
- Zigurd 10y agoYou can make more engineers, but there are at least 100 international corporations with software development offices in India, plus Tata, Symphony, etc. in line ahead of Samir's App Dev Shop to hire them. They've got recognizable brands, lots more money, and more stability. Plus it takes good general education to be a good software developer. Once you get outside of first tier Indian universities, it gets thin pretty fast.
- forgotAgain 10y agooriginal source https://developers.google.com/training/programs/india/ https://developers.google.com/training/programs/india/
- asQuirreL 10y agoJust to clarify, the position of people insinuating that training 2 million Indian people to be Android developers will cause a proliferation of malware: Would your reaction be the same if it were a western country? If it is, then I would argue that the people writing malware apps are educated at a level beyond the training Google will likely provide. Full disclosure, I'm an Indian person who has training in Android app development, but don't worry, I'm not yet harbouring any malware-producing urges.
- James001 10y agoyeah, looks like the hackernews community is slightly racist
- hiram112 10y agoEvidently you've never monitored log files on a server open to the Internet. If you had, you'd know that filtering off a few 'specific' nations' IP ranges will instantly cut your risks down by 90%. The nations causing the biggest problems are always countries with a lot of developers and low wages. India would be a huge addition. This makes complete sense economically. In China, a smart engineer could make $5k a year writing software 80 hours a week or could develop a botnet and make $100K, with no risk of legal issues. Can't blame him one bit. The same good developer in the US or Western Europe could just work a normal job, make decent money without risking jail. Why bother with the scams? It's econ 101. Or it could be racism, xenophobia, or misogyny. But I doubt it.
- James001 10y agoIt's more that this thread is full of people mad that 2 million Indians are going to be competing with them for jobs at lower prices than they are willing to do. The result is people making thinly-disguised racist comments about how terrible this is.
- badmadrad 10y agoI would like to see these type of free cert programs offered by Google and other tech leaders in the US. I assume they might be but maybe its not publicized?
- sumitgt 10y agoI think that would be a Udacity Nanodegree :) This is conceptuallyu similar to a nanodegree but modified to suit an environment where internet access is limited.
- dragonwriter 10y agoCertification generally isn't free (but can be fairly low cost), but the training part sometimes is free: a lot of tech leaders offer training programs on the web either directly (e.g., from a company-controlled website) or via MOOC platforms (e.g., EdX X-series or curricula like Microsoft's "Data Science Curriculum", Udacity Nanodegrees, etc.)
- adamredwoods 10y agoI think this is through an initiative by the Indian government. I don't think the US government has anything similar.
- aphextron 10y agoReally glad to see Google spending millions of dollars to train people on the other side of the world, while there are thousands of intelligent, well educated, blue collar Americans in the Bay area scraping by and being priced out. Oh, but then we'd have to pay them decent salaries! Good move.