Being from India as well and undergoing my college course (1st year), I completely understand and agree with cpp.samurai. I think you are overestimating C++ in India. Forget "new" and "delete", my teacher barely understands what pointers are which naturally spills over to the students as well. In my opinion, I find programmers in US, UK, etc are vastly superior. Obviously, I am judging by the people *I* meet which happen to be teenagers. I just don't find that kind of spirit here. Out of the 60 students in my class for my course ("Computer Science and Engineering"), the rest 59 can barely do a "Hello World". The problem lies in the root. Ask anyone in my class, they chose Computer Science simply because thats where the demand is not because they actually like the subject. I doubt outsourcing has any effect on programming worldwide. Its more of customer support, etc thats being outsourced, monotonous work. I don't think you can apply the same sort of teaching pattern for other subjects to programming. Ironic actually, you spent more time writing code in your book than a computer. I do agree, a certain amount of theory is required for programming as well but the usual grinding and mugging up can never be applied to coding. Sadly, it happens. Most of the students in my class can write basic programs but when it comes to pointers and stuff, they actually byheart the code and the examinations don't ask any questions beyond your textbook. I just don't get it, how can anyone just memorize a program. "There is no teaching, only learning." Programming is the best example for the quote :)