C language inventor spurns Google's language exam
Google won't allow the co-inventor of Unix and the C language to check-in code, because he won't take the mandatory language test.
Between 1969 and 1973, Ken Thompson implemented a version of the Multics system at Bell, called Unix, with Dennis Ritchie. At the same time he also developed the C language. The speed and simplicity of C helped Unix spread widely. Both have subsequently become quite popular.
Google hired Thompson to create a new language, Go. But Google also requires all of its recruits to pass a language test. According to Thompson, he hasn't quite got round to it yet - and so can't submit code.
The snippet emerged in a book called Coders At Work, published last September. We don't know if the information is still current, or whether Thompson has finally allowed himself to be subject to a humiliating examination on the language he invented by an acne-scarred, know-it-all Oompa-Loompa who is absent-mindedly flicking paper pellets into a Starbucks cup while Twittering.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_our_test/