
Google to Train 2 Million Indian Android Developers - jswny
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/google-to-train-two-million-indian-developers-on-android-platform/articleshow/53152243.cms
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sumitgt
I'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.

~~~
Joeri
You make a fair point. But i want to be honest and say the negativity is not
all prejudice. I have been involved with hiring of devs in India and Europe,
and from what i've seen the ratio of bad to good candidates is far worse in
india than europe.

I don't know why this is the case. My suspicion is that far more Indians get
into IT for money or status. People who go into IT for those reasons almost
always are mediocre to poor devs. Regardless, i don't see this google training
program improving the ratio.

~~~
akshatpradhan
>Regardless, i don't see this google training program improving the ratio.

I don't understand. Training is training. If you don't think training improves
the ratio of good to bad developers, then why do we have all these training
programs in the US like Coursera or Stanford's Open Computer Science Courses?
The reason we have MIT Open Courseware is to train and improve
developers...thereby improving the ratio of good to bad developers. That logic
holds true for any training program. The Google Training Program should
improve the ratio as well.

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Bjorkbat
Good 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
Fixing 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
It would be kinda interesting if someone conducted a study to see how many
jobs were created by outsourcing gone wrong.

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tracker1
I 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
The 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
People 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
>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.

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fhood
2 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.

~~~
PunchTornado
Another 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
Hold 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.

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twistedanimator
There go the salaries for Android developers...

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aphextron
Really 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.

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daveloyall
Better headline: Two million humans to train Google's new Android Development
neural network over next three years

/s

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asQuirreL
Just 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
yeah, looks like the hackernews community is slightly racist

~~~
hiram112
Evidently 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
It'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.

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desireco42
Not 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
This 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
Then more power to you! :)

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Zigurd
There 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
You 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
You 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.

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badmadrad
I 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?

~~~
dragonwriter
Certification 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.)

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forgotAgain
original source
[https://developers.google.com/training/programs/india/](https://developers.google.com/training/programs/india/)

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fredgrott
actually, 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?

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myohan
google is doing the training for you...i am sure someone will capitalize on
this big time.

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ben_jones
Do you want more Malware apps? Because this is how you get more malware apps.

~~~
mind_heist
I 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
Logically, 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.

~~~
mind_heist
You are definitely right about this, unless you have constant access to senior
developers and mentors - It requires a lot of effort on the part of the
'learners' / 'trainees' to level themselves up. But once again, large
subgroups have effectively converted them to world class workforce without any
external interference at all.

Reid Hoffman visited Shenzen last year , and made some really interesting
observations. I'll try and add a link to his article, But I think the essence
of his trip was - How small groups built ,tinkered , hacked, learnt and became
technicians by themselves ( in often cases even without a college degree). On
top of this they also layered , other cost optimizations , spoke English and
were self made entrepreneurs. I have seen similar trends in other parts of the
world too, though not at the scale of Shenzhen . In the City I come from , a
certain suburb was well known for Automobile repair work - Most of them could
disassemble and reassemble entire cars , and sometime construct a car from
disparate parts ! This eventually turned to a smaller version of 'Orange
County Choppers'.

Its really hard to create/recreate such environments,but may be thats what
Google is trying to do here. Or May be they are trying to build something
similar to the 'Manufacturing' examples I gave above.

