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Google Code-In winner whose Cameroon hometown is cut off from the internet
- xrisk 10y agoWhat a clickbaity title... A Google Code-In winner is hardly a 'coding champion'.
- analogmemory 10y agoJesus, get some coffee or something. 34 Grand Prize Winners out of 1300 isn't something to scoff at. Considering his situation. It's not like he's being coddled with a participation trophy like some white kid in Beverly Hills.
- relics443 10y agoIt makes it sound as if he's a champion coder at Google, because it's lacking context. It's a clickbait title to drive views towards an exploitation piece (not necessarily negative exploitation, but still exploitation).
- fundameen 10y ago"rich kid" not "white kid"...
- pizza 10y agosome numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills,_California#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills,_California#Demo... census says >80% are white and the typical household income was nearly ~$90k, too. That isn't a bad thing because of Beverly Hills per se, but it does seem typical of wealth not flowing freely enough in this country.
- maged 10y agoIs it not a coding competition?
- royalharsh95 10y agohttps://codein.withgoogle.com/ https://codein.withgoogle.com/
- relics443 10y agoWas just going to say that. I'm all for getting teens involved, but it's dangerous to puff up too much. I'm sure he's very proud of his work, but I'm not sure I would categorize it as a "series of complex technical tasks". I can't find exactly what he worked on, but from a blog post he wrote [1] it seems like pretty basic stuff: I made a few PRs on the OpenMRS source code (had to squash a lot of commit though), and a PR on the reference application to allow login using only the keyboard! That was the most tricky task I did [1] https://collingrimm.wordpress.com/2017/01/15/gci-week-7-overview-wrapping-up/ https://collingrimm.wordpress.com/2017/01/15/gci-week-7-over...
- xrisk 10y agoYes, I know exactly what GCI is, being a finalist myself.
- adamsea 10y agoYes, it is quite dangerous to puff up too much. A teen is liable to pop if over-puffed ...
- cbhl 10y agoI would argue that this is a "series of complex social tasks" -- Google Code-In is about having high school students get contributions to real open-source projects accepted. That means communicating over Slack/IRC/Mailing Lists, and learning each project's conventions, and so forth. I remember taking part in this competition in high school, and I was only able to get one task done. And -- disclaimer -- I work for Google now. By comparison, USACO or the Canadian Computing Competition is a walk in the park.
- chinhodado 10y agoYou're just being too harsh. Most people have no idea what Google Code-In is. Sure, you can change it to "Google coding competition winner" but "champion" is not that bad anyway.
- dang 10y agoOk, we've put "Google Code-In winner" in the title since it's more specific. Still please don't comment like this here. The combination of harshness and niticking is particularly unwelcome.
- relics443 10y agoI agree with his intent but not his delivery. However, asking a community with many engineers to not harshly nitpick someone else's contribution is a futile task.
- vog 10y ago> asking a community with many engineers to not harshly nitpick someone else's contribution is a futile task. Behaviour like this also not acceptable in "real life", neither at work place nor anywhere else. Maybe some get away with that cliché behaviour, but in my experience this is just an inappropriate way to deal with their own weaknesses, leading to embarrassing situations (for them) as soon as they get to work with people more experienced than they are.
- relics443 10y agoI agree that it's not acceptable. Doesn't mean it's not futile to ask for it to stop.
- azernik 10y agoI have worked in professional software engineering environments where people acted professionally, and plan to create one in my new company. The mentality that "nerds will be nerds" enables and perpetuates this counterproductive behavior.
- relics443 10y agoSame here. But a new engineer I hired who looked great on paper and on his interviews is just obscene. He's not a great engineer to boot. Can't fire him because I need him for now. I don't think it's a self perpetuating stereotype. I think some people are wired that way, and engineers tend to skew there because of the way their brains work (obviously not every engineer).
- wzy 10y agoSome of you guys have no idea how lucky you are to have good, fast and reliable internet. I've been around computers since 1998 and it's been 4 weeks since I have a good enough internet connection to watch my first 1080P internet video
- TheOneTrueKyle 10y agoStory time?
- wzy 10y agoJust the same old, same old 3rd World problems
- noobermin 10y agoI moved in 1998 (ironically) to an isolated island my parents were from and lived there till 2008 and moved back here for college. It was like walking into and out of a time-capsule, I missed the emergence of the internet into what it is today. I still learned to hack and everything else in Palau regardless, it was just like playing with a handicap, it's still possible to learn and all, it's just harder. EDIT: to clarify, I didn't have it that bad, there was <20 kbps internet with a monthly total hour cap, but it was expensive and not very reliable and slow.
- farresito 10y agoThis place looks amazing. Like really really amazing. A bit off topic, but how much did you enjoy your time there?
- avar 10y ago> I still learned to hack and everything else in Palau regardless, > it was just like playing with a handicap, it's still possible to > learn and all, it's just harder. But in some ways so much easier. I remember how I treated the Internet before I had a 24/7 connection. I'd make lists of stuff I needed, use my time on the Internet effectively, learn from the material I downloaded and use that to inform my next browsing session. Whereas now there's so many distractions, case in point me posting on this website right now.
- rwoodley 10y agoWhat a great story! Cameroon is highly dysfunctional; the government is one of the most corrupt in the world. The fact that this boy can prevail regardless is impressive in a way those of us in more functional societies have trouble appreciating.
- Proven 10y agoIf there is a point in this story, it is that internet connectivity isn't required for IT development and that development can be bootstrapped by private companies and talented individuals.
- mattnewton 10y agoAnother great reminder that top talent could be born anywhere, and America's edge is that people want to move here to work for American companies.
- akhilcacharya 10y agoAnd start American companies.
- pizza 10y ago“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” - Stephen Jay Gould
- ScotterC 10y agoTalent is evenly distributed. Opportunity is not. Check out Andela :)
- rak00n 10y ago"Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere." - Anton Ego
- searealist 10y agoTop talent: https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-module-referenceapplication/pull/33/commits/0095d108f6ddd5bc62cd20bae582c3a31903aedc https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-module-referenceapplicati...
- j_s 10y agoThis is the firs time I've heard about this competition for high school age developers. Glad it finally got some traction here on HN; I apparently need to find a more education-specific technology news site!
- arjie 10y agoDon't assign your personality flaws to our profession. They're your personality flaws. I don't need this rubbish attitude in order to do a good job.
- dang 10y agoOuch. First, please don't respond to a bad comment by making the thread even worse. Second, please especially don't do personal attacks. Third, please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to HN. You've done that more than once and we ban such accounts. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13617192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13617192 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- arjie 10y agoHaha, I deserve that. But he deserved the comment too. Still would have deleted if I could've.
- dankohn1 10y agoI will show this article to my sons this weekend and redouble my time with them teaching them to program. As with many things in life (healthcare, food, peace, schools), we also need to appreciate having high-speed Internet access and two parents with programming experience and the time and interest to mentor our children.
- mooveprince 10y agoGood read to end the week
- Cyph0n 10y agoKind of ruined by an unusual number of toxic comments. But what an inspiring kid.
- tw04 10y agoI fully expect Ajit Pai to use this as proof we don't need any improvements to infrastructure in the US.
- vermontdevil 10y agoI also found the part about cutting off mobile for the English-speaking part of Cameroon to be scary. Esp when Africa relies on mobile for financial transactions and banking and now these people are stuck. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38895541 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38895541
- sangnoir 10y ago> Esp when Africa relies on mobile for financial transactions and banking and now these people are stuck. "Africa" has no such mobile money reliance - you are probably thinking of Kenya. Africa is 54 countries and 1 billion people, your generalization is overbroad.
- cryptozeus 10y agoAnd then just a day after the deadline for final submissions, the internet went dead.