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The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

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Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#41

Post by mgaunard »

gandalfgeek wrote: post #25

(former Googler) It was really special to see how this pair basically laid out the foundations of large-scale distributed computing. Protobufs, huge parts of the search stack, GFS, MapReduce, BigTable... the list goes on. They are the only two people at Google at level 11 (senior fellow) on a scale that goes from 3 (fresh grad) to 10 (fellow).

Let's not exaggerate. Everything they did was already well-established in academia for decades and what they built was pretty dumbed-down rather than novel, at least conceptually.

Sure, they did good engineering to apply those techniques at Google, but they did not "lay out the foundations of large scale distributed computing".

Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#42

Post by nostrademons »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #34
nostrademons wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually quite interesting how many of the early Googlers came from PL research backgrounds, and how it impacted Google's culture. Jeff Dean's thesis on whole-program optimization of Cecil/Vortex [1] was a classic even before Google got big, and eventually he got his boss Craig Chambers hired to write Flume [2]. Urs Hoezle (Google's first employee #9) was the founder of the Self project, which pioneered many of…

And now they can't even build a chat app. So sad how much Google has fallen. That's why research and product should be separate.

IMHO most of Google's woes stem from the promotion system. The incentive is to launch, promote, replace so you can get other people promoted. There's basically zero incentive to build anything durable because if you do, it means your people won't get promoted, they'll leave, your headcount will disappear, and eventually you'll find yourself marginalized and forced out.

Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#43

Post by wildrhythms »

_zamorano_ wrote: post #7

I struggled badly on a pair programming position. It's not like I don't like reviews or cannot work alongside another person. It's I cannot learn while someone is talking to me or trying to make me place the cursor somewhere. I'm all in for code review, even in pairs. In fact, I do that with a junior dev I have assigned and it's working well for us. I leave him thinking and come back to evaluate his solution. I find…

Seems like your programming partner was particularly micromanagey. When I pair program it's more of a conversation to discover different approaches. If you're having to tell someone where to position the cursor, that's missing the point!

Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#44

Post by wildrhythms »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #34
nostrademons wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually quite interesting how many of the early Googlers came from PL research backgrounds, and how it impacted Google's culture. Jeff Dean's thesis on whole-program optimization of Cecil/Vortex [1] was a classic even before Google got big, and eventually he got his boss Craig Chambers hired to write Flume [2]. Urs Hoezle (Google's first employee #9) was the founder of the Self project, which pioneered many of…

And now they can't even build a chat app. So sad how much Google has fallen. That's why research and product should be separate.

I think it's happening at every tech company. They are now being led by tech-illiterate company hopping businesspeople rather than passionate engineers.

Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#45

Post by michaelrpeskin »

_zamorano_ wrote: post #7

I struggled badly on a pair programming position. It's not like I don't like reviews or cannot work alongside another person. It's I cannot learn while someone is talking to me or trying to make me place the cursor somewhere. I'm all in for code review, even in pairs. In fact, I do that with a junior dev I have assigned and it's working well for us. I leave him thinking and come back to evaluate his solution. I find…

I think that PP is generally talked about backwards. Everyone says that the least experienced programmer should drive while the senior programmer talks. When I was an intern 25+ years ago before pair programming had a name, I sat beside the grey beard who did the typing. I watched him and tried to keep up. For the first couple of weeks, I contributed nothing, but once I started to understand the code and his style, I was able to start seeing simple things, like reminding him to do a null pointer check, and then I started to see more and more stuff and I was able to contribute in real time.

I think this worked because 1) he was comfortable with me staring over his shoulder with neither of us talking and 2) I was comfortable with just watching an learning. I've tried this style with my junior programmers, and I'm too anxious being quiet and coding while someone watches me, and most juniors are also too anxious to prove that they're paying attention so they have to talk, and that breaks the flow.

Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#46

Post by impossiblefork »

dskrvk wrote: post #32
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they used this PR for what? This isn't a puff piece. Those guys are the real deal.

It elevates Google itself. “It’s a place where people like Jeff and Sanjay work!” Not saying that was the main motivation for producing the article and definitely not trying to question the protagonists’ achievements.

It elevates a Google of the past, which may no longer exist.

Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#47

Post by VirusNewbie »

mgaunard wrote: post #41
gandalfgeek wrote: post #25

(former Googler) It was really special to see how this pair basically laid out the foundations of large-scale distributed computing. Protobufs, huge parts of the search stack, GFS, MapReduce, BigTable... the list goes on. They are the only two people at Google at level 11 (senior fellow) on a scale that goes from 3 (fresh grad) to 10 (fellow).

Let's not exaggerate. Everything they did was already well-established in academia for decades and what they built was pretty dumbed-down rather than novel, at least conceptually. Sure, they did good engineering to apply those techniques at Google, but they did not "lay out the foundations of large scale distributed computing".

Academia lags quite a bit behind industry when it comes to software engineering.

Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#48

Post by hulitu »

williamDafoe wrote: post #17

I don't enjoy these types of lionizing articles, badically these types of articles is what you give $10k-$50k to a PR team and they start to write these articles yo elevate your reputation in the industry ...

They can't talk about CIA founding so they create stories about heroes. /s

Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#49

Post by mgaunard »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #47
mgaunard wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not exaggerate. Everything they did was already well-established in academia for decades and what they built was pretty dumbed-down rather than novel, at least conceptually. Sure, they did good engineering to apply those techniques at Google, but they did not "lay out the foundations of large scale distributed computing".

Academia lags quite a bit behind industry when it comes to software engineering.

That's because academia doesn't actually do software engineering, it does computer science.

Re: The Friendship that made Google huge (2018)

#50

Post by golergka »

mgaunard wrote: post #18
zooq_ai wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's perfectly fine to revere people and get inspired. Jeff Dean, Dennis Ritchie, Isaac Newton, Claude Shannon, Stephen Wolfram and others are brilliant thinkers who have impacted the world. In fact, the higher the IQ, the better you are able to discern true intellect vs loud mouths. I for one revere Jeff Dean and I'm proud of it. It doesn't affect my life negatively in any way. In fact betting on people that I rever…

Most achievements are the product of multiple factors meeting at a specific point in time. In many of the scenarios you hint at, new problems or opportunities arose, and those people were simply well-positioned by chance and circumstance to tackle them. The problem should take center stage, not the men.

What you're saying is closer to the truth, but believing in heroes is more useful for personal motivation. When believing in something untrue is good for them (usually, for their mental health), people usually choose to do it.
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