No, my remarks are fair and well supported: The post praised Skiena's book, and that was a poor move because (1) there are many other sources back to, say, Knuth's TACP, and (2), as I said, the computer science in that book is not good and the good is not computer science and is covered poorly.

In particular, Google is showing that they are far too centered on 'computer science' where they accept low quality material just because it was hijacked from its real origins in various fields of applied mathematics into a book on 'computer science' and poorly presented there.

The post insisted that a candidate needed to know dynamic programming as in Skiena or was not "prepared", and this is sick-o, brain-dead, ignorant, arrogant, destructive nonsense: First, there is nothing serious about dynamic programming in Skiena; Google is not "prepared" in dynamic programming. Next, while I happen to know a lot about dynamic programming, I've never asked about it in interviewing people for computer science positions. One reason I know a lot about dynamic programming is that my Ph.D. dissertation was in stochastic optimal control.

What I didn't say, but which is true, and which I implied, is that the topics in Skiena should not be given so much importance. Or, to be so positive on Skiena's book is to be far too fond of a particular collection of gnats and to forget a herd of elephants.

One way and another, I happen to have a good background in nearly all the topics in that book, usually far deeper than in that book, but in interviewing I would not ask for knowledge of topics from that book. Here Google is making a mistake.

In addition, I did once have a Google interview: It was a disaster. For really brain-dead reasons, they didn't like me. Their worship of C++ as a religion showed that they have a bad interview process which meant that I didn't like them. Good riddance.

That they want their interview process to be so severe indicates both arrogance and ignorance; they should be brought down a few notches.

There is a fundamental problem in such interviewing that apparently Google has not understood: Can't hire a bunch of house painters or people who have just heard about house painting to select someone to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Google's process would definitely filter out any Michelangelo. They'd likely also filter out a Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, or Bill Gates.

In fact, based on a brain-dead religious devotion to C++, their process filtered out someone with expertise in nearly all the topic in Skiena's book much deeper than in the book.

Actually, mostly people who are really good with the better topics in Skiena's book never touch C++!

Google is making mistakes. Their interview process is a symptom, among others, of some serious management problems at Google.