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That is probably why,though I am somewhat dubious of IIT grads being better programmers than the average tech talent even in Bangalore. Saying that often brings

That is probably why,though I am somewhat dubious of IIT grads being better programmers than the average tech talent even in Bangalore. Saying that often brings a violent reaction from IIT grads, but I've found it to be largely true. Iow, I am not sure school has anything to do with programming ability (it might be interesting to draw up a matrix of dev superstars and schools. hmm). Unlike Stanford or MIT, IITs don't do world class research. They have a good bachelors degree program. And Google Bangalore doesn't do "cars that drive themselves" style work anyway. From what friends who work at Google tell me, Google Bangalore doesn't have a(n internal) reputation (to put it mildly) of pulling off feats of superior engineering skill. That said, I have zero issues with Google using any criteria they want to hire devs (just in case it wasn't clear earlier). I don't consider them "elitist" just because they do what works for them. In fact I don't even believe in the "elitism" concept. I think it is a largely empty word used to mean "they do things in a way that I find unsatisfactory". Even if Google has a hiring bias towards IIT grads, the best way for a non-iit grad to get a job offer from Google (if that is what he wants) is to be a better engineer than the favored folks. "Be so good they can't ignore you" as a wise man said. Good Advice.

statictype 15y ago
That is probably why,though I am somewhat dubious of IIT grads being better programmers than the average tech talent even in Bangalore. You're probably right (and I say that as an IIT grad). Most of the people I knew there were significantly smarter than me but couldn't program their way out of a paper bag.
irahul 15y ago
> though I am somewhat dubious of IIT grads being better programmers than the average tech talent even in Bangalore. I believe it's more like given a choice between someone `who is most probably a good athlete and may or may not be a good footballer`, and another `who may or may not be a good athlete and may or may not be a good footballer`, you would go with someone who is most probably a good athlete. The ideal way would be to test them on the soccer abilities, but the volume of applications a company like Google does, and the percentage of people who claim to be programmers, but aren't really good, forces the use of heuristics. It will be simply impractical to test candidates for the actual programming the job entails. Also, IIT grads do well in traditional interviews. You are more likely to get a dynamic programming solution from an IIT grad for a subset sum problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subset_sum_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subset_sum_problem than from a normal college grad - not that it has a high correlation with programming abilities, but traditional interviews focus on these kind of questions. I did my bachelors from a simpleton college, and I was considered a good programmer, because hell, I could code up a vanilla binary tree in C++(no string attached - a binary tree with inorder traversal - that's it) from scratch in a lab test in under 45 minutes - that was as hard a problem you could get to solve in a lab test. I would have to be admit I will be negatively biased towards people graduating from that cadre of colleges. Not that they aren't good programmers there - it's just that you will have to dig through a lot of not-so-good to find someone good, and it's not a worthy investment of time. The kind of questions that are asked on tests will make you puke. We had a AI course, and we were following AIMA(I believe you were maintaining the Java code at that time) - the questions that were asked on the first test were essay questions viz. "How do you design a better computer"(from introduction chapter which wasn't much about designing about a better computer), implementing A* search was considered outside the scope of the course(implementing anything from the book was considered out of scope)...I could go on an on, but you get the idea.
kamaal 15y ago
Elite institutions do little to produce great people, they just act as a place where great people can assemble, learn and move forward. The same with IIT, IIT itself will do little to make the person better. Even my experiences with IIT'ians has not been uniform, a lot of them are good ... but not everybody. Now the main stuff, Academics is one thing, industry totally another thing. Academics assumes that you can memorize, recollect from the memory and invent. The industry assumes your can discover and deliver. In our times to be able to discover is far more important thing than ability to invent. Coupled with productivity is what makes this software so interesting. If you are productive, hardworking, and discover and experiment quickly you can achiever far more than any guy from IIT or whatever. In short, Education only takes you so far. After that its all upto your work.

statictype 15y ago

That is probably why,though I am somewhat dubious of IIT grads being better programmers than the average tech talent even in Bangalore. You're probably right (and I say that as an IIT grad). Most of the people I knew there were significantly smarter than me but couldn't program their way out of a paper bag.

irahul 15y ago

> though I am somewhat dubious of IIT grads being better programmers than the average tech talent even in Bangalore. I believe it's more like given a choice between someone `who is most probably a good athlete and may or may not be a good footballer`, and another `who may or may not be a good athlete and may or may not be a good footballer`, you would go with someone who is most probably a good athlete. The ideal way would be to test them on the soccer abilities, but the volume of applications a company like Google does, and the percentage of people who claim to be programmers, but aren't really good, forces the use of heuristics. It will be simply impractical to test candidates for the actual programming the job entails. Also, IIT grads do well in traditional interviews. You are more likely to get a dynamic programming solution from an IIT grad for a subset sum problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subset_sum_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subset_sum_problem than from a normal college grad - not that it has a high correlation with programming abilities, but traditional interviews focus on these kind of questions. I did my bachelors from a simpleton college, and I was considered a good programmer, because hell, I could code up a vanilla binary tree in C++(no string attached - a binary tree with inorder traversal - that's it) from scratch in a lab test in under 45 minutes - that was as hard a problem you could get to solve in a lab test. I would have to be admit I will be negatively biased towards people graduating from that cadre of colleges. Not that they aren't good programmers there - it's just that you will have to dig through a lot of not-so-good to find someone good, and it's not a worthy investment of time. The kind of questions that are asked on tests will make you puke. We had a AI course, and we were following AIMA(I believe you were maintaining the Java code at that time) - the questions that were asked on the first test were essay questions viz. "How do you design a better computer"(from introduction chapter which wasn't much about designing about a better computer), implementing A* search was considered outside the scope of the course(implementing anything from the book was considered out of scope)...I could go on an on, but you get the idea.

kamaal 15y ago

Elite institutions do little to produce great people, they just act as a place where great people can assemble, learn and move forward. The same with IIT, IIT itself will do little to make the person better. Even my experiences with IIT'ians has not been uniform, a lot of them are good ... but not everybody. Now the main stuff, Academics is one thing, industry totally another thing. Academics assumes that you can memorize, recollect from the memory and invent. The industry assumes your can discover and deliver. In our times to be able to discover is far more important thing than ability to invent. Coupled with productivity is what makes this software so interesting. If you are productive, hardworking, and discover and experiment quickly you can achiever far more than any guy from IIT or whatever. In short, Education only takes you so far. After that its all upto your work.