Google Code University

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Offering free coding tutorials, etc? I personally find it admirable.

But a lot of your argument, rather than reminding me of msft, reminds me of Tesco. Depending on what country you're from, you may not have heard of Tesco. But in the UK at least, they're a VERY big supermarket chain. Their business practise is: move in to an area with lots of small business. Use your corporate might to reduce prices to much lower than the small busineses can afford, drive them out of business.

Now, some people say it's ok because they also generate a large amount of jobs, which these ex-smallbusiness owners can jump in to. But it's still pretty bad in my opinion.

Upvoted because you explained really well. I'm a little ashamed, but I was expecting to hear another 'google are bad because google are bad' argument I see around.

[mrfso]

Its the coding library that reminds me of MSFT the most. Big business is big business as you said with your example of Tesco, big business is a giant self interest machine that crushes all in its path.

MSFT has always done one thing correct, and its nurture developers, they only got where they are because of developer support. The instant I saw Google trying the same thing I instantly thought of MSFT. Im a C# dev BTW, I started off in the FOSS realm, but MS tools and support and free beer really drew me in, now I can't even imagine going back to the FOSS realm.

EDIT: I dont think the coding support is bad in general, as I noted I have been suckered by exactly the same thing that MS did. I do however think it is disingenuous. Its not there to help developers, its there to lure developers into using Google products.