Topcoder statistics

I was going through the Country-wise topcoder rankings of programmers.

This survey, I feel is a good indication of where we are heading.

And I was of the opinion that India is moderately good in Programming than the rest of the world.Look at the number of programmers(931) in India and the ranking(15th). And just check out China.This looks like the Olympic Games Medal Tally which we see every 4 years and sulk.

UPDATE
I got confused between a programmer and a software engineer.
This was going on in my mind since yesterday.

These kind of contests may judge a great programmer. But A GREAT ENGINEER ? A GREAT INNOVATOR ? These guys are what companies need....Ofcourse, they need, good programmers who are like tailors(skilled labor).....But the innovators and engineers are the movers and shakers for the success of a company.

This has caused some panic even in America

Let's face it:-

A great innovative programmer CREATES.The great programmers in this world are those who have demonstrated their abilities by actually designing and implementing great software. Coding the solution in a competition proves great problem SOLVING capabilities BUT NOT PROBLEM DISCOVERING abilities.A good guy in the software industry, should also know that he must be able to sense the need of automating some tasks or he should sniff at a system, and say "hey! i can write a piece of sw, instead of tabulating and writing in a book".You don't have to look any further than the GNU, Linux, Apache, KDE, Gnome etc. etc. CVS and mailing lists to find the real great innovators!

As well as software engineers? The best ones are those who can demonstrate abilities in :-
a) DESIGN
b) RE-ENGINEERING
c) DOCUMENTATION & COMM SKILLS.

Well , as far as many jobs coming to India.....This may be happening for sometime....We'll surely have stiff competition from China and Eastern Europe....I see a lot of Eastern Europeans in Ottawa :D ....Even the guy next to me is a Romanian....

heheh