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Ten Years at Google

neil.fraser.name

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Re: Ten Years at Google

#41

Post by cmrdporcupine »

peteretep wrote: post #30
op00to wrote: post #18

The title of the article is very misleading. I would have loved to read how Google changed on the inside over the last 10 years. Or maybe even how the author changed. Instead, we get some spam about some tool that is neat.

I was also a little disappointed, although I don't think I'd have written your comment... I wonder if anyone has a favourite article that reflects on how they and Google changed over the ten years that they were there?

I'd like to see some articles like that, too though I have heard stories a few times from a few old timers I've met at company events, I couldn't hope to summarize them nor could I legally, I'm sure. There's not, imho, a massive difference in the company over the 5 years I've been there (albeit in a 'remote' office), but the people who have been there over a decade definitely saw a different kind of company.

Re: Ten Years at Google

#42

Post by rixed »

dyarosla wrote: post #27
bootload wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it looks horrible and cluttered and wouldn't like to look at a complex version of this over flowcharts" You are right. It looks horrible and cluttered and could be made better. Though visuals and design aside, the idea is sound. There is a real barrier b/w textual/visual in software. You don't see this in other physical disciplines like EE. It would be interesting to have a better (easier to read, standardised etc.)…

There have been very many attempts. Scratch is a pre-cursor to Blockly[0] Code.org has an in-house build on top of Blockly[1] and then there are mobile apps like Hopscotch & Tynker based on Scratch[2][3]. There's also full-fledged game engines like Stencyl[4] based on Scratch as well. To be totally honest, the whole paradigm looks cluttered and illegible to me, and I've been researching learn-to-code environments for…

Just for the record I have to add snap to this list, which is the only one that worked with my kid. It's like a much cleaner alternative to scratch, as a single JavaScript page designed to world offline too (which I've found to be a requirement for a distraction free environment).

http://snap.berkeley.edu

Re: Ten Years at Google

#43

Post by joekim »

op00to wrote: post #28
ANH wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if you're parodying HN here. This is from someone's blog and is a personal reflection on his most important work of the past 10 years. Do you expect everyone to be an historian?

I expect an article titled "Ten years at Google" to talk about someone's experience at Google over the last 10 years, not a project that started in the last 5. If that's "being a historian", tell me why that's bad.

There's nothing bad about being a historian nor is there anything bad about writing about your most significant project in ten years. Both are aligned with the title.

Re: Ten Years at Google

#44

Post by pgbovine »

williamstein wrote: post #37

This guy (Neil Fraser) wrote https://github.com/lqc/google-diff-match-patch right before joining Google, which is an incredibly useful foundational library for realtime synchronized text editing. He was very influential in open source work on realtime sync until going to work at Google, when he just sort of disappeared.

Blockly has been a reasonably widely-used open-source contribution, especially given that it's mostly a one-person project (the last time I checked, but that was a few yrs ago).

Re: Ten Years at Google

#45

Post by edblarney »

coldcode wrote: post #38

Amazing to work for 10 years at one place. The only place that comes close is working for my own company back in the later 80s, early 90's. Who stays with one employer anymore these days?

"Who stays with one employer anymore these days?"

Google will keep anyone talented that's 'producing stuff', they have massive surpluses of cash.

I think a lot of people would love to work at Google for a long time so long as they fit in the culture. Who wouldn't want to work on fun stuff that the word is using?

And a high, stable income is the next most valuable thing after stock options in a high flying company :)

What are the alternatives? A startup wherein you will likely lose your job? Oracle? Cisco? Probably not nearly as interesting.

Alt career choice? Might cut their salary in half ...

Maybe a different way to frame it: why would they leave?

I wouldn't even like to work at Google, but I have no trouble understanding why people would park there for a long while :)

Kudos to them for providing a place for so many talented folks to create cool things.

Re: Ten Years at Google

#47

Post by bootload »

dyarosla wrote: post #27
bootload wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it looks horrible and cluttered and wouldn't like to look at a complex version of this over flowcharts" You are right. It looks horrible and cluttered and could be made better. Though visuals and design aside, the idea is sound. There is a real barrier b/w textual/visual in software. You don't see this in other physical disciplines like EE. It would be interesting to have a better (easier to read, standardised etc.)…

There have been very many attempts. Scratch is a pre-cursor to Blockly[0] Code.org has an in-house build on top of Blockly[1] and then there are mobile apps like Hopscotch & Tynker based on Scratch[2][3]. There's also full-fledged game engines like Stencyl[4] based on Scratch as well. To be totally honest, the whole paradigm looks cluttered and illegible to me, and I've been researching learn-to-code environments for…

"VPL"

I missed/mis-understood this bit. I think of the visual side as another slice of how code is constructed/works/understood. I've limited experience of VCL (windstorms) and thought it was terribly clunky, got out an editor and used text.

Visual coding has a place in geometric construction. This has to do with feedback maybe less so on understanding code.

Re: Ten Years at Google

#48

Post by mattnewton »

sn9 wrote: post #46

I recognized his site for being the source of one of the most inspiring posts on the potential for what CS education could be: https://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/03/16/

Oof, my brain hurts with that filled-in-counting problem the Vietnamese children were reportedly crushing.

Re: Ten Years at Google

#50

Post by codeonfire »

hacker_9 wrote: post #10
bootload wrote: post #5

"My biggest contribution so far at Google has been Blockly." Nice - https://developers.google.com/blockly/ no real fan of google, but the tools and code churned out by individuals there is pretty interesting. This I will play with.

Blockly is awesome and often overlooked. It realises the idea of a real time scripting language, and should really be the thing devs reach for over flowcharts when they decide to implement a visual programming environment.

I saw the exact same app circa 1996 sans the web stuff. Our professor was trying to force this on us because it was his big research idea. It's not overlooked, just a really old idea that didn't pan out 20 years ago.
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