Is there a useful correlation between choice of web-browser/search engine and good quality programmers?

Question

After a round of interviews earlier this year, which included some practical questions with access to a computer, I noticed that, at least for the applicants we were seeing, there was a high inverse correlation between quality of applicant and the explicit choice of Bing/IE as the stack for search/browsing the web. That is, a large number of applicants specifically searched for IE to use as a browser when browsing the web, and specifically used Bing as the search engine (even typing in Bing in the Google search box, before starting a search)

Is this just an outlier, a fluke, or is there some sort of information I can obtain from this observation? So far, my best candidates are:

• Yes, there is a high correlation between good programmers and choice of web browser/search engine
• There is some training program, or community, which advises using IE/Bing during interviews, and I just happened to run into a poor selection from that group
• Something else is going on, that I don't know about, but someone here might know.

So, to repeat, the question is: is there more than coincidence at work here, and, if there is, what's going on?

Answer 1

Theorhetically there should be about as much correlation as a person's blood type and their temperament as a person. The blood type theory is pretty common in many Asian countries, to the point where that information is in the bio for important people. It's the same type of unrelated association that brought that theory into being.

You will probably see a higher incidence of IE/Bing usage among .NET developers, particularly if they've gone through any type of training. Microsoft is very good at promoting its own products through every channel it can. I used to believe there was an inverse proportion to a programmer's quality and the number of certificates they had, but I met a few certified Sun, Microsoft, etc. developers who were really good. It's luck of the draw there.

There may be some psychological effects going on here as well. People who are content with the status quo will accept anything that is set before them the first time as normal. They will feel strange and out of place by attempting anything that is not the default behavior, which would explain people actively seeking out IE and Bing--consequently leading to your observation. It's this type of person that will not be a good programmer. They won't be able to think in ways that will improve long standing problems. The same type of person might instinctively reach for Apple Safari if they grew up on a Mac.

However, once you get outside the defaults, there are a miriad of reasons why people choose the browsers they do. For example, for day to day browsing I choose Google Chrome due to its good security record and its very fast response. However, for web development I choose Firefox because the dev plugins on that browser are most mature and helpful. I'll check in IE and Chrome to ensure I'm not missing anything (covering the three most common rendering systems [Chrome and Safari share the same rendering library]). These days, the story is getting better on both Chrome and IE 8 and up--but still not as good as Firefox.

I think the most useful course of action would be to ask the person why they chose the browser/search engine they did. If the answer is along the lines of "I've always used it" or "I don't know", there is a possibility that they might be the status quo kind of person. Further questions will weed that out. If they give you a reasonable explanation, it shows they are thinking about the choice.

Who knows, maybe there is some benefit to the IE/Bing combination we aren't aware of. I personally doubt it, but there just may be.

Answer 2

People who use computers more are more likely to have encountered more than just the default browser, and therefore less likely to settle on IE as their favourite.

Bear in mind as JoshL says below in the comments:

you can't infer from this relationship that anyone with IE is a sucky programmer

Answer 3

You're trying to make an argument of the form:

p -> q

q therefore p

ie:

if 'they were bad programmers' (p) then 'they used IE' (q)

someone uses IE (q) therefore they are a bad programmer (p)

This is affirming the consequent. It's a logical fallacy, and it's a ridiculous proposal in the first place. You are not your browser. There's nothing to be obtained from this observation other than the fact that you had a bunch of bad candidates and have to better your phone screen process.

Answer 4

I'm surprised there's hasn't been an avalanche of replies of web developers, to the effect of: "When we develop web pages, half the effects don't work in various versions of IE, especially the older ones without adding various tricks and hacks. The other browsers - Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc have been much better about adhering to and supporting the standards. So a serious web developer pretty quickly gets tired of IE and looks on it unfavorably. IE has been getting better in this area, but still wants to be different for the sake of product differentiation.
Still, IE is now something like 1/4 or 1/3 of the browser market. Long gone the days of 98.1% of users."

As for bing, sheesh I remember when folks were using "ask Jeeves" in 2002 and I was running around saying "Google is THE answer". If only I'd bought stock ;) go LNKD ;) ;)

Answer 5

I think there are a lot of potential confounding variables here:

1) Using Bing over Google could be seen as a good thing. The general suggestion is that IE is bad because it means that the person has failed to make a choice, but the same is surely true of Google, more a defacto standard for search than IE is for browsing these days. Someone using Bing has likely made a concious choice which suggests the sort of experimenting / assessing which is generally regarded as positive.

2) An increasing number of companies (we are one) mandate non-IE browsers by default for security reasons. In this instance the logic reverses and using IE becomes the choice rather than Firefox.

3) If a developer spends a lot of time developing to target a certain browser then I'd see it as a good thing that they use that browser by default.

4) I suspect there is a certain anti-MS bias generally which looks down on IE and Bing which, once you'd noted this once may have lead to confirmation bias. This needs to be excluded.

5) Was the computer set up in such a way that IE was easier to find? In the toolbar or on the desktop? It maybe the thinking was less about which browser, how do I find the net as fast as possible?

And on top of that you'd have to find some workable metric for assessing programmers as good or bad...

It's a mildly interesting idle observation but I wouldn't put any stock in it and I think firming it up would be far more effort than was warranted.

For what it's worth my gut feel is that search engine choice would be irrelevant (point 1 and point 4 above being significant for me), browser choice would show a weak inverse correlation between IE users and ability but nothing strong enough to usefully use.

Answer 6

It is a strange, but a very interesting question indeed.

I believe there should be a correlation.

Good programmers strive for efficiency and quality. IE/Bing cannot provide those compared to Firefox/Google. If people don't care about those very basic things, tools in their work, chances are they won't care about their work or anything at all. And it is a known quality of a good programmer that he cares and has an own opinion of the things.

It is also possible that those programmers weren't web programmers. But even so, there should have seen "the Internet" in their practice since it's become a primary source of the information and knowledge. And then, they couldn't have missed Google and Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome.

Answer 7

Correlation, maybe. But you have to dig still.

What if the candidate worked for the past 6 years at two different jobs. Both of which locked down the environment and provided only IE as the available browser?

Of course, you will get used to it and start to prefer it.

But personally, there are a few things that will start to drop you to a thumbs down in my book. The tools you use certainly indicate your experience as well as the lack of use of tools. If you haven't tried and have an opinion on every free IDE (as one example) out there, then hit the road.

Answer 8

It's a matter of availability.

If you don't care about computers, you're going to go to a store that sells computers and buy a Windows box. Once you've got it, you'll use IE because it's there (when I boot into W7 on my laptop, IE has a favored position on the task bar even though I rarely use it), and Bing because it's what IE uses by default. Also, you're not going to be interested in alternative ways to do things, and will try to use what you're used to.

If you do care about your computing environment, you will get a computer with your favored OS. You will experiment with browsers until you find what you like, and the same with search engines. There's no guarantee that you won't decide you like Windows, IE, and Bing, but the chance is much higher that you'll use Mac or Linux, Firefox or Safari or Opera or Chrome, or Google.

When looking for a programmer, you generally want one who likes computers and is willing to try new things. You also are likely to interview people who you really wouldn't spend time on if you knew them better, but that's what the interview's for. They will want to use IE and Bing disproportionately.

It's also possible that good programmers prefer the alternatives to IE and Bing in general, but that's not necessary to explain your observations.

Answer 9

I suppose I can put up my own experience and let others infer the relationship. I like to think I'm a good developer. And here are the browsers installed on my system:

• IE 9 Beta (32 and 64 bit)
• Chrome Dev. 9.0
• Firefox Minefield 4.08pre (64 bit)
• Firefox 3.6.13 (32 bit)
• Opera 10.63
• Safari 5.03

This is because I care about web standards and want my development to look good and work proper on as many platforms as I can muster. All being told, Chrome is my current browsing favorite due to its top-shelf performance on JavaScript-heavy sites and decent library of add-ons now.

Oh, edited to add: I will set my default search engine to Google in every case.