>Do unqualified people who attend these events actually succeed in getting jobs at Google?
No, most likely not.

>Do really good people who do not attend these events and interview with Google fail as a result?
I think many do.

> I work at Google and having seen the interview process, I find it hard to believe that such "cheating" is effective.
I am not saying "cheating" is effective, but required! If you don't at least Google for a Google Interview and study, then you fail.

Worst yet it is not even considered cheating in the new culture I see forming. Yet, by my standards the ones of my Generation, learning the questions and studying them before a test is cheating.

I don't mean to imply it's systematic or deliberate, but it's just the nature of it. Maybe it's a culture that evolve to be that way.

I'd also like to say I love Google. So much so at my Yahoo Interview I said it by accident. I am sure that didn't help.
Without Google search It would be like getting a lobotomy. I'd be so lost without it. I'd sooner die then use Bing. And yahoo, please.

So, back to my story, these student, almost all, were easily Mensa and more then qualified but green as limes. Just super smart CS students, doing cool things and hanging out with other cool guys that can have a heated debate on parallel sort algorithms and get really worked up over it after a few beers. Which is why I end up these sort of things.

On one occasion someone from Google is present, going back to school for their Ph.D.
Of course working at Google you'd think there was a Big superman logo on his chest and everyone was a awe. Inevitably the conversation turns to how did you get a job there, and soon the group is being stumped by interview questions. A party game really.

On two separate occasion, with totally different groups in different parts of California I have seen this take place, and I am told it's not uncommon.

Having been though some of these Interviews first, I found it quite interesting. I also found most questions are explained quite well on the Internet, although it took some efforts to track down the answers.

So basically here is my take on it. If you have been at one of these gathering where it turns in to a discussion of Google Interview questions, then you Google for answers and learn them. Your odds of getting hired will increase immensely.

As for me, and many of the really Senior Kernel hackers I also hang out with, who are the best and smartest programmers I know. Well, we laugh about Google Interviews or similar companies, Yahoo Included and the general consensus usually come out to what asses, they think they know it all. Why even bother.
The very fact that this main article even made it is evidence of that.

Most of us Senior guys would never hang out with the kids on campus, and so we wouldn't gain this inside "tribal" knowledge, "tips and tricks". We don't study before an Interview because we live eat and sleep in C. Our credentials and track record generally speak for themselves, we are a small community.

So there is a little cultishness to it whole thing, not that Microsoft, Apple or Facebook don't also have their flavors of it. Overall the process tends to filters out many talented experienced and capable people who just happen to not be in the right social circles.

I think few people, even with IQ's of 150+ can properly answer these questions on the spot without foreknowledge.

I guess it sort of makes sense that Google want's to hire good Googlers. I have been told repeatedly is that many students study and prepare for years before their Google Interview and it like trying to get in to MIT or Harvard. They talk to friends at Google, get the questions that will be asked and study up on the answers, in once case I even heard about a group of students that gather once a week to collectively study for their Google Interviews in the hopes they'd all get hired in.
I will not make reference to there nationality.

This leads to many green people and senior ones that only know Google's way. This filtering out people who have years of alternate hands on experience has an effect.

Then end result is obvious when you watch Google do things. They do great stuff that lacks the rubber meets the road vision, intuition and experience.

This is why you end up with the Wave, Buzz, G+, Google TV, Chrome all of which completely lack the real world appeal of Facebook, or Apple products. YOU GUY's JUST DON'T GET IT.

I see this in the Music Industry, someone gives a Perfect Technical performance, but not so good if your goal it to sell records. Why no feeling, it's not inspiring.
On the other hand, someone with a voice like a box of rusty nails such a Johnny Cash can put out hit literally months before passing away of old age.

Some of the smartest or just pure raw talented people can't get through formal education, they don't test well , they may never have studied anything formally.
So what I am saying is Google would most likely never higher a self taught, autodidactic, a "Mozart" of software.
As a matter of fact they probably would even really appreciate one.
I'd be Steve Job's could never have gotten a job at Google and even if he did, he could never flourish there.

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-google-interview-questions-that-will-make-you-feel-stupid-2009-11?op=1

Yep, I said it.
I have been to several University nerd parties where a Google employee coaches his friends and prospective candidates as to how to answer some of the questions.
What I have notice is some of the questions require giving a wrong answer, and any answer other then the "one they want" will be a mark against you, no matter how correct it is.

So basically you need to get the answers or at least enough clues online to be able to pass the interview. You must study for it like the SAT's. I have even seen Google Interview Study parties. I consider this cheating, which is in my humble option complete bullshit.

I have been programming C since 1982 and C++ since it's inception in 85 or something like that. I have plenty of code in the Open Source and worked on so much code I can't even add it up at this point.

I am always the one who can fix the hardest bugs, Kernel panics/oops, pour through core dumps, clean up drivers, JAG the hardware, and do the board bring ups.
I have worked on code in over 100 languages counting all the flavors of assembly language and scripting language.
I have developed some of the cleanest architectures and have code a number products that are on the market today and in the BSD and Linux Kernels.

I deliberately keep to a subset of C and C++ and avoid many things that make machine parsing and code analysis in sed/awk/grep/find difficult.
Occasionally I needed to look up things when I see someone do weird obfuscation crap in their code.

http://churchofbsd.blogspot.com/2011/11/weird-obfuscation-crap-in-their-code.html

Some one that passed one of those interview tests probably thought he was being clever.

In professional code we don't want clever. Clever is BAD because clever makes the next guys job hell.

At this point my fingers know the language, my eye's just know what looks correct. I think what I want and it just pours out of me, but don't ask me to explain because I am not sure, I'd have to stop and think.
Much the same way I was with phone numbers (Back when we had to dial them) where I needed to actually dial the number to see where my fingers go to be able to tell you what the number was.

I find I code best when I am not thinking, I literally don't look too closely at the screen. I just keep myself distracted and only stop to consciously think about the larger design and architecture.

So I can't code on a blackboard. Just can't do it. I never was able to, and I am not about to try now after 30 years of VI on CLI.

As a result I can't get through most of the interviews like that. Fortunately I already make more money then most of those places would pay anyhow.

I don't need such abuse, I am not one of those sad old guys that can't find work doing Cobol any more.

You know how it rains after you wash your car.

Well yesterday me and a friend went on a 3D shopping spree at Fry's yesterday. Were going to set serious about 3D.

I bought an LG W2363D 3D monitor, a GeForce GTS450 Graphics Card and the 3D Vision Glasses Kit.
Now 24 hours later, it's obsolete!! NVidia come out with the Next Generation.

I also a second 3DS for my youngest, at least that's not obsolete yet...

My friend Will also bought the ASUS Laptop with the NVidia 3D built in yesterday as well.

It is my believe that most vulnerabilities are 'design issues' and not just "security holes" that can be patched over.

I have been studying OS design now for almost 20 years, I think most of these designs where fine for just trying hack something to work, but now with everything interconnected, they were just never built for that.

I have an OS design I have been working on for the past 10 years Amorphous OS that is intended to solve almost every issue I've seen talked about.

Most come from just having a common File System view for the whole OS. This become a place where malicious code can live and hide and exploit.

But memory could be treated much better and more efficiently. The Stack Also needs to be isolated better and separate data storage, instruction pointers, and code better.

None of this is new, it was talked about in the 60's and 70's then it seems everyone forgot about it. So today it's coming back to bite us.

Way cool. I actually wanted to build and run a cluster with a custom implentation.
Patent and commercialize the output.
I had a few specific things I wanted to go after.

Well with enough input knowledge of molecules. You could also use Neural networks or GA to evolve better models, but I did realize the problem you are referring to.

Again it's not going to be 100%, maybe not even 50% but even 10% would still reduce the search space immensely. The downside is you could easily overlook optimal solutions that don't model correctly.

It's not quite the same as back then they were EPROM's and not EEPROM's or flash. So you'd have to actually pull the chips out, erase them with a UV Lamp and then programming then in a Burner.

It's a long story but after I left high school in New Jersey I had entrusted a friend Mark to ship my possession to California where I had moved to. Instead it stole it all.

After moving I started a large collection of BIOS for XT, AT 80286 motherboards. I had written code that was floating around the BBS's that would harvest the BIOS and dump out ROM images that you could burn on to EPROM and install in to another Motherboard.

So I had made several sets of the latest AMI bios for some friends back home. Well Mark asked a mutual friend to get a copy of the BIOS from me, but not tell me who it was really for.
Well I found out and prepared a special BIOS just for him.

Mark was a big warez guy. He was sharing floppies with everyone.

So I took a copy of the Friday the 13th virus. Also know as Jerusalem B that would slow your PC down to a crawl and every time you ran a program it's file size would grow. It was very easy to detect and clean and mostly harmless. I removed the malicious payload , but made sure it still propagated normally.

The virus was only around 2000 bytes, and ran as a TSR.
I found some empty space in the ROM image, and xor encrypted it and placed it in and added hooks so when you format a floppy (Int 13) it would install the virus TSR.

From there it would then attach itself to any exe file that get's ran.

So I burned the EPROM's and sent them over. I was hearing story's from friends how he was loosing his mind. He'd clean all his disks. Then go to make someone a copy and it would be infected. No one would trade disk with him.

He never did figure out how he kept getting infected.

Revenge is sweet.

I wrote up a plan for something like this about 2 1/2 years ago and posted on my blog about 9 months ago when it became obvious to me that as cool of an idea as it was, it wasn't something I wanted to work on.

The basic idea is to take a computational chemistry package and run it through a genetic algorithm to search for suitable candidates that solve certain problems.
Better solar cells, dielectrics for supercaps, or materials with specific properties.

The physics quickly went over my head and I was never able to get funding or grants for this without a PhD.

I am glad to see this is starting to happen.

Project - Mc Lab / Magic Chemist, in a Box.
  http://johnsokol.blogspot.com/2010/12/project-mc-lab-magic-chemist-in-box.html
  http://thegreentank.blogspot.com/2010/12/project-mc-lab-magic-chemist-in-box.html

When I was in ShenZhen last, a few Chinese had iPhone clones that looked a lot like the real deal.

Xvworks and microware, yuck.
I am a video specialist and love doing real time control stuff and embedded systems. I have yet to understand what they are talking about with RTOS. I can do microsecond accurate timing now in vanilla BSD or linux. Yes 1/1,000,000 second timing. Verifiable on an oscilloscope from user space or in drivers.

Overall I think the opensource is the important part of stability. The more eyeballs looking at code the more solid it will be.
This is why new code should be treated with some suspicion till it has been run for so long in so many different condition. Been reviewed and scrutinized over and over. This is what gives stability.

I am http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsokol

http://www.videotechnology.com/
http://churchofbsd.blogspot.com/

By definition a stable system has to be running older code that's been fixed and is well understood rather then "the latest" updated code.

If your constantly churning and updating you can not be stable.

Red Had run's behind the main Linux distribution to get added stability.

But FreeBSD which seems old and stodgy is like that because of the emphasis on stability over features and improvement.
It's also simpler under the hood which is also important for Stability.

But it all depends on what your trying to do. GUI vs. Server.
For Server I'd go with BSD.
For GUI I'd go with Windows, Apple OS-X (BSD variant), maybe Android (haven't developed on it yet) X Windows just sucks.
For Embedded , I'd go with what ever the eval boards ship with. Usually Linux these days. (Certainly not PSOS or QNIX)

At this point I can compile the same code on all of these using GCC and run them equally well. They are all Posix compliant. SDL run's on all of them.
Java also run on them. So does Flash, LLVM, TCL, PERL, RUBY, Python or what ever langue du jour.

Let's end the religious wars on OS's, it's about getting your work done. The OS is just a platform for the language your want your code to run on.

Hello constant updates is not a sign of Stability!
The problem is there isn't much need for commercial support for something that doesn't break all the time.

I have used RedHat in a server farm of over 1000 systems and I have used FreeBSD in servers systems that were a little smaller.

The BSD generally run's behind in code version on the application side, but these are more stable and not constantly pushing the bleeding edge. It's used inside Router and Big server farms and so tends to be better on the network side.

With Red hat we had so many problem with the BNX/BNX2 10 GB ethernet drivers, it was a nightmare scenario with over $500,000K in blade servers constantly crashing, there were the HP vendor drivers, and the RH drivers and the Linux main line drivers, which we ended up building and using till RH caught up.

FreeBSD is hardly dead. Some of the fastest network drivers exist in FreeBSD.
At this point the BSD's are almost a flavor of Linux. There is a Linux compatibility layer also.

I have written drivers for Both BSD and Linux. BSD drivers are generally much clean and more straight forward and it's because of them that many HW vendors bring up a BSD driver first even if they choose never to share it.

I don't have any way to check that, but the visible white component of the sun's light doesn't carry much heat.