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Google stopping coding competitions

developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#241

Post by evilduck »

tpmx wrote: post #226
finfrastrcuture wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Tesla?

Let me say it: HN would be a better place without the obligatory downvotes for MS-critical posts. The other large companies' employees somehow avoid doing this, why can't you? Are you really that insecure? ('you' here not meaning the poster I just commented, but, well, you know who.)

I also generally distrust and dislike Microsoft and have no affiliation with them but I just don't see how you made the leap to introducing Microsoft to the conversation in the first place. It just sounds like you have an axe to grind and are wedging it into the conversation. How is Microsoft connected to Google and/or coding competitions or the contents of the top level comment you replied under?

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#242

Post by CydeWeys »

sethaurus wrote: post #187
robocat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> line cooks I agree with you. However it is interesting that Charlie Ayers (employee #53 as a cook at Google), made millions when his stocks vested.

I'm not surprised that google has cooks as employees — but it's surprising to know they were hiring a cook when they had at most 52 other employees!

It's not that surprising to me. Ships with a crew of 8 will have a cook to feed everyone. Eating is pretty essential, and I think they were working pretty hard at the office back in those days.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#243

Post by eastWestMath »

jcranmer wrote: post #119
eastWestMath wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I’ve always been a bit leery of code competitions. I saw a lot of undergrads spend a lot of effort on these contests, and I was never convinced it was the best use of their time (especially because the university I did my graduate studies at had a professor who put a lot of effort into running the competitive programming club). I think a group of 15-20 bright and enthusiastic CS students under the guidance of a…

There are some good things about coding competitions, if done well: * Introduction of developers to a core kit of useful algorithms * Practical examples for developers to design algorithms that require adaptation (e.g., how to adapt the bipartite matching algorithm to tripartite) * Training people in how to debug their code--the most useful competitions are the ones where programmers don't always have access to the c…

These are all, of course, things one should learn in an algorithms class.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#244

Post by skeeter2020 »

JohnFen wrote: post #138
gkoberger wrote: post #9

We could lament them shutting it down, but why not thank them for doing this for 20 years? That's a LONG time to do anything, and despite what Google has become, it absolutely defined tech culture. Now it's obvious and commonplace, but an employee-centric company was revolutionary at the time. Things like this changed the lives of every single person here, either directly or indirectly. And best yet, it's a chance fo…

> an employee-centric company was revolutionary at the time In the world of major software corporations, perhaps, but it's not like it was unknown elsewhere.

They were never the poster child for "employee centric" companies; they were just young, successful, made an awful lot of money and spent it. From this timeframe Fog Creek was the defacto "developer first" company.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#245

Post by skeeter2020 »

tpmx wrote: post #87
gkoberger wrote: post #9

We could lament them shutting it down, but why not thank them for doing this for 20 years? That's a LONG time to do anything, and despite what Google has become, it absolutely defined tech culture. Now it's obvious and commonplace, but an employee-centric company was revolutionary at the time. Things like this changed the lives of every single person here, either directly or indirectly. And best yet, it's a chance fo…

Know what's even worse than Google on autopilot? Microsoft.

Microsoft (as another giant monster of a company) at least has the decency to contain terrible parts (Windows, parts of Azure & and consumer goods) and amazing parts (Programming, parts of Azure and developer tools). Google is just uniformly bad.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#246

Post by skeeter2020 »

AlbertCory wrote: post #234
red-iron-pine wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aye. This guy was a pro chef hired to cater to a cash-rich start up. Not a college dropout working the prep line, or, like many of the kitchens in the US, a Hispanic guy with semi-passable English skills and who may-or-may not be here legally. Charlie got lucky.

he got lucky, but when they said, "We'll give you some stock in lieu of a big salary" he had to say Yes. How many chefs would do that?

>> "We'll give you some stock in lieu of a big salary"

big tech salary or big restaurant salary? The difference is 10x

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#247

Post by astrange »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #236
astrange wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because large companies are good. They're easier to regulate and more productive. If you're a small company, that means you're not good enough to get big, and if you've met SMB owners they're often the most reactionary class of people.

Small businesses are a very good thing for local communities, if only because they engage people in productive work, enable them to feed their families, enrich local communities with more available goods and services, and promote community building and engagement. All business (in the classical sense, meaning productive work) is a good thing. Large businesses are the ones that tend to abuse their power, gather data i…

Monopolies being bad is an axiom of some kinds of political theory that doesn't seem always true. Like I said, they're easier to regulate because there's less of them - that's how utility companies work. And often they're also monopsonies, which means most "monopoly" analysis doesn't work on them.

And mom-and-pop businesses are totally capable of bad behavior and especially are worse to their employees! If they're too small to have HR departments they are perfectly capable of doing business based on personal grudges, wage theft, and accidentally doing things up to and including hiring slave labor.

> lie to investors

This one's funny because startup investors actually demand you lie to them (because they think it shows the right personality traits for a CEO, psychotic optimism), whereas large companies are public and the SEC will sue you if you lie in your investor reports.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#248

Post by stephencanon »

chlorion wrote: post #238
quantified wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure that truck drivers haven't benefited from Google maps and the ability to search for things while on the road. Do you think they avoid the internet? Line cooks: they don't use the internet when they go home? They don't watch Youtube? They don't use Google maps to get where they're going sometimes?

I used to drive a box truck at work and I can definitely confirm that google maps is used heavily. I used Google maps during almost every trip! Finding random addresses in places you aren't familiar with can be difficult and waste a lot of time, with the maps app it would let us go straight to the destination. I can only recall one time that Google maps lead us astray too! It's very accurate even in rural areas and o…

> It's very accurate even in rural areas and on random tiny back roads in the middle of nowhere.

… which is how we would end up with a semi stuck on our old street a couple times a year, blocking all traffic for everyone. “Oh, Google said to take this road!”

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#249

Post by tpmx »

evilduck wrote: post #241
tpmx wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me say it: HN would be a better place without the obligatory downvotes for MS-critical posts. The other large companies' employees somehow avoid doing this, why can't you? Are you really that insecure? ('you' here not meaning the poster I just commented, but, well, you know who.)

I also generally distrust and dislike Microsoft and have no affiliation with them but I just don't see how you made the leap to introducing Microsoft to the conversation in the first place. It just sounds like you have an axe to grind and are wedging it into the conversation. How is Microsoft connected to Google and/or coding competitions or the contents of the top level comment you replied under?

How is Microsoft connected to Google

When Google falters, Microsoft will be there to scavenge. I'm worried that Microsoft again will become the dominant software company.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#250

Post by tombert »

aniforprez wrote: post #81
Reason077 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Maps, and the huge number of products based on OpenStreetMap are perfectly fine as maps. And actually, even better than Google Maps in many cases. But where Google Maps still dominates is in its unrivalled, global point of interest (POI) data. Accurate business locations, opening hours, photos, reviews, etc... nobody else comes close.

Honestly Apple Maps isn't even particularly good outside of the US and a few European countries. Roads are constantly out of date and can barely keep up and landmarks and businesses in tons of major cities aren't close to correct

It's not particularly good within the US outside of a few of the big cities.

Dallas has a lot of parallel highways/roads, and Apple Maps seems to get really confused and have to recalculate the route every few minutes when I'm down there. Google seems to understand it perfectly and simply doesn't do that.

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