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Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

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Re: Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

#21

Post by candiodari »

peoplewindow wrote: post #16

I worked at Google during that period. It's not quite as simple as "Python > C++" although yes, for sure, you're going to produce new UI features at a far faster rate working in a high level language like Python than working with C++. Absolutely that was a factor. I don't think Google Video had hundreds of developers vs 20 though. That doesn't sound right to me. The real reasons YouTube won were strategic, not purely…

If I recall correctly youtube also focused on embedding early on. Embedding google video videos was impossible. This lead a lot of people to youtube and google videos just missed out on it.

Re: Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

#23

Post by jakeogh »

I remember when Google announced video.google.com was closing, and then they backtracked and said it wasn't. And then they closed it. I have video.google.com posts that I would like to migrate, but it's gone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H542nLTTbu0

Re: Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

#24

Post by justonepost »

thisisit wrote: post #10
nitwit005 wrote: post #4

As much as I want to credit python, I doubt that was the cause. It's typically far easier to ship a new feature at a small company, because there's no bureaucracy, no wait for QA, no need to translate text into 20 languages, etc.

No QA and not even a lengthy release process. The question always is - Are you done with the programming? Go release it. Additionally, people are more tolerant of mistakes made by small companies. Features stopped working? Maybe couple of people will complain. Google's features stopped working? Media, bloggers.. everyone will have an opinion on why this happened and how to resolve it.

Startups are generally more tolerant of failure and half baked code. Googlers, who have lived there whole lives achieving perfection in school, not so much. I see this all the time at big companies that hire 4.0 GPA from ivy leagues.

Re: Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

#25

Post by tomgp »

nitwit005 wrote: post #4

As much as I want to credit python, I doubt that was the cause. It's typically far easier to ship a new feature at a small company, because there's no bureaucracy, no wait for QA, no need to translate text into 20 languages, etc.

I think there's certainly something to be said for the agility of small teams in shipping new features but I also think it's not particularly contentious to suggest that developers are more productive in higher level languages esp. when your focus is on user experience etc.

Re: Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

#26

Post by nandwidth »

bsder wrote: post #17

YouTube was also burning money for bandwidth like nobody's business. I suspect that Google Video tracked and limited bandwidth. If Google hadn't bought them, YouTube were headed straight for bankruptcy. People forget that the YouTube deal was a big time boardroom back scratch between Google and the VC's. The worst part is that Google subsidizing YouTube has set back a real monetization of video on the web.

I disagree with that. I think the web is monetizing video at an appropriate rate, considering most video itself is essentially worthless.

That video content is costly to produce, and kills bandwidth indiscriminately, does not mean video is valuable. Just because there’s a high bar for video to exist, doesn’t mean that cost should get passed on to consumers.

Most video is non-essential, and consumers get to be picky about where their disposable income goes. Video needs to be redeeming to the viewer, whatever their tastes may be, and whose fault is it that the surplus of junk content exists?

Re: Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

#27

Post by DonHopkins »

grzm wrote: post #6
hyperpallium wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Perhaps also brilliant engineers don't want to hack together something half-assed that barely works, but does provide the feature. I've always liked that youtube uses PHP - much derided, but its declarative "templating" is the easiest, simplest, most direct way to generate html. Maybe that was a factor too. But I think the youtube engineers might have a more accurate opinion on why they were quicker, than the go…

> but its declarative "templating" Do you have any insight onto how much of the templating aspect of PHP is used at Youtube? I know of some large PHP installations where PHP is used as a general programming language that does produce web pages, but the templating aspect of PHP is pretty much minimal, and other engines actually produce the final output.

For a so-called templating language, PHP sure falls short, and thus has a plethora of ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementations of half of many other templating languages implemented in it.

https://www.smarty.net/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule

Re: Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

#28

Post by justonepost »

dbspin wrote: post #18

As someone who was creating a reasonably popular 'video podcast' back then, I have a different perspective... Uploading to Google video was incredibly slow relative to Youtube. During the period of the 'battle' between the two services, Youtube allowed only very short videos - excluding most useful content, but discouraging piracy (except for very laborious multi part uploads). G'Video on the other hand allowed uploa…

Yeah, absolutely. I remember that being a big thing as to what Google Video said when they bought youtube. The immediacy of the upload was a huge factor in YouTube's success. It's not hard to imagine that YouTube won via better PM. That often happens.

Re: Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

#29

Post by justonepost »

bsder wrote: post #17

YouTube was also burning money for bandwidth like nobody's business. I suspect that Google Video tracked and limited bandwidth. If Google hadn't bought them, YouTube were headed straight for bankruptcy. People forget that the YouTube deal was a big time boardroom back scratch between Google and the VC's. The worst part is that Google subsidizing YouTube has set back a real monetization of video on the web.

"boardroom backscratch" that's the phrase I've always wanted to use but never knew it. Thx!

Re: Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video

#30

Post by est »

nitwit005 wrote: post #4

As much as I want to credit python, I doubt that was the cause. It's typically far easier to ship a new feature at a small company, because there's no bureaucracy, no wait for QA, no need to translate text into 20 languages, etc.

Fun fact: online code editing & hot reload is a thing for python folks.
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