7 ms·

> Also if a software engineer is good enough they may simply choose to work for an American firm This seems a bit unlikely to me: 1. Ignores patriotism. 2. T

by GlennS 5y ago

> Also if a software engineer is good enough they may simply choose to work for an American firm This seems a bit unlikely to me: 1. Ignores patriotism. 2. The number of good programmers in China is going to overwhelmingly outnumber the opportunities for them to work for a US company.

simonh 5y ago
There are vanishingly few good programmers in China, proportionally. I have a friend that heads a computer science department at a regional university in China. He's an old friend of my wife. The vast majority of graduates from his department have never run a single line of code on an actual computer. The teaching and assessment is 100% theoretical on paper, and this is typical. Now I'm sure there are colleges and universities where this isn't true, and there are lots of Chinese programmers that do it for fun and love it just as much as any 'westerner'. I've actually met some shit hot C and C++ coders in china professionally and these people absolutely knew their stuff. However the base level education system is woefully unfit for purpose and the vast majority of computer science graduates cannot be assumed to have any practical knowledge of the subject. This was as of about 5 years ago, so maybe things are changing.
- solaarphunk 5y ago
  5 years in china is equivalent to 15 years in the outside world. Things have definitely changed.
  - FooBarWidget 5y ago
    So China is the heavenly palace and the rest of the world is earth? What will Sun Wukong think?
    - thesz 5y ago
      It is the other way around. "Year for three" is a staple of hard work in harsh conditions, such as foundry work.
- naniwaduni 5y ago
  Honestly, this genre of venting about new grads has long been applied to new grads here in the West too. It's a long-standing complaint of the industry that academia isn't willing to serve as vocational training.
  - enkid 5y ago
    I mean sure, but most of the time Comp Sci degrees have Freshman compiling code on day one. This is a pretty be qualitative difference if the above comment is true.
    - lapetitejort 5y ago
      I took a freshmen level C/C++ class in community college as a requirement to get an Associates in Science. All we did was compile. We didn't learn any high level CS theory.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      My mother's friend's husband is a math professor at a university in Kansas. A major complaint of his is students coming in who aren't able to add fractions. So I don't see the big qualitative difference between complaints about bottom-end Chinese college students and complaints about bottom-end American college students, no. If it's of interest, I looked into gaokao test scores a while ago and the cutoff for being admitted to a Chinese university lies around the 40th percentile. The schools are officially divided into two tiers (obviously, there are finer distinctions you can make), and the cutoff for the higher tier is around the 80th percentile. So a large number of Chinese universities should have almost the entire student body within what you might think of as an IQ range from 96 to 112.
      - enkid 5y ago
        Your mother's friend's husband is a math professor who complains about the quality of Freshmen entering into a math course, therefore the quality of computer science students in the United States are on par with the one's in China. Do you see a problem with this logic?
- dasil003 5y ago
  There are vanishingly few good programmers anywhere. SV has more because it attracted them from around the world. In my experience college education has nothing to do with who is really a good programmer. Sure MIT grads are better than average, but that's because they have a reputation to attract the people that are the most interested in it. CS fundamentals definitely make you a better programmer and able to solve harder problems, but it's somewhat orthogonal to the daily grind of keeping a mental model of a large obtuse system in your head while solving hundred arcane micro-hurdles one after another.
  - golergka 5y ago
    Eastern Europe and Israel seem to have a decent proportion.
    - dasil003 5y ago
      My hypothesis there would be cultural factors drawing out a greater percentage of those with the potential.
      - rory 5y ago
        In eastern europe it's pretty simple. The collapse of the soviet union left a strong education system and also poverty. Learning to program is one of the most straightforward and doable ways to a good income, so lots of people do it. Israel is probably a knock-on effect of that, since most (jewish) israelis are (or descend from) eastern european migrants.
        golergka 5y ago
        > most (jewish) israelis are (or descend from) eastern european That's a popular, but unfortunate misconception. Majority of Jewish Israelis are Mizrahim that immigrated from middle eastern countries, running from persecution by Muslims.
        5y ago
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > I have a friend that heads a computer science department at a regional university in China. He's an old friend of my wife. The vast majority of graduates from his department have never run a single line of code on an actual computer. The teaching and assessment is 100% theoretical on paper, and this is typical. At a regional Chinese university you are basically looking at those who couldn't go abroad and to the tier one institutions. And same thing for the TAs and teachers there.

by GlennS 5y ago

simonh 5y ago

There are vanishingly few good programmers in China, proportionally. I have a friend that heads a computer science department at a regional university in China. He's an old friend of my wife. The vast majority of graduates from his department have never run a single line of code on an actual computer. The teaching and assessment is 100% theoretical on paper, and this is typical. Now I'm sure there are colleges and universities where this isn't true, and there are lots of Chinese programmers that do it for fun and love it just as much as any 'westerner'. I've actually met some shit hot C and C++ coders in china professionally and these people absolutely knew their stuff. However the base level education system is woefully unfit for purpose and the vast majority of computer science graduates cannot be assumed to have any practical knowledge of the subject. This was as of about 5 years ago, so maybe things are changing.

solaarphunk 5y ago
5 years in china is equivalent to 15 years in the outside world. Things have definitely changed.
- FooBarWidget 5y ago
  So China is the heavenly palace and the rest of the world is earth? What will Sun Wukong think?
  - thesz 5y ago
    It is the other way around. "Year for three" is a staple of hard work in harsh conditions, such as foundry work.
naniwaduni 5y ago
Honestly, this genre of venting about new grads has long been applied to new grads here in the West too. It's a long-standing complaint of the industry that academia isn't willing to serve as vocational training.
- enkid 5y ago
  I mean sure, but most of the time Comp Sci degrees have Freshman compiling code on day one. This is a pretty be qualitative difference if the above comment is true.
  - lapetitejort 5y ago
    I took a freshmen level C/C++ class in community college as a requirement to get an Associates in Science. All we did was compile. We didn't learn any high level CS theory.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    My mother's friend's husband is a math professor at a university in Kansas. A major complaint of his is students coming in who aren't able to add fractions. So I don't see the big qualitative difference between complaints about bottom-end Chinese college students and complaints about bottom-end American college students, no. If it's of interest, I looked into gaokao test scores a while ago and the cutoff for being admitted to a Chinese university lies around the 40th percentile. The schools are officially divided into two tiers (obviously, there are finer distinctions you can make), and the cutoff for the higher tier is around the 80th percentile. So a large number of Chinese universities should have almost the entire student body within what you might think of as an IQ range from 96 to 112.
    - enkid 5y ago
      Your mother's friend's husband is a math professor who complains about the quality of Freshmen entering into a math course, therefore the quality of computer science students in the United States are on par with the one's in China. Do you see a problem with this logic?
dasil003 5y ago
There are vanishingly few good programmers anywhere. SV has more because it attracted them from around the world. In my experience college education has nothing to do with who is really a good programmer. Sure MIT grads are better than average, but that's because they have a reputation to attract the people that are the most interested in it. CS fundamentals definitely make you a better programmer and able to solve harder problems, but it's somewhat orthogonal to the daily grind of keeping a mental model of a large obtuse system in your head while solving hundred arcane micro-hurdles one after another.
- golergka 5y ago
  Eastern Europe and Israel seem to have a decent proportion.
  - dasil003 5y ago
    My hypothesis there would be cultural factors drawing out a greater percentage of those with the potential.
    - rory 5y ago
      In eastern europe it's pretty simple. The collapse of the soviet union left a strong education system and also poverty. Learning to program is one of the most straightforward and doable ways to a good income, so lots of people do it. Israel is probably a knock-on effect of that, since most (jewish) israelis are (or descend from) eastern european migrants.
      - golergka 5y ago
        > most (jewish) israelis are (or descend from) eastern european That's a popular, but unfortunate misconception. Majority of Jewish Israelis are Mizrahim that immigrated from middle eastern countries, running from persecution by Muslims.
        5y ago
908B64B197 5y ago
> I have a friend that heads a computer science department at a regional university in China. He's an old friend of my wife. The vast majority of graduates from his department have never run a single line of code on an actual computer. The teaching and assessment is 100% theoretical on paper, and this is typical. At a regional Chinese university you are basically looking at those who couldn't go abroad and to the tier one institutions. And same thing for the TAs and teachers there.