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“What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

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Re: “What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

#121

Post by PhasmaFelis »

nostrademons wrote: post #32
RogerL wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, everyone fails and you think it is a good question? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I can't reasonably answer the question, because I haven't really needed to know it. When I need to know it, I'll learn it, and quickly. How is that question a good measure of me if you are not hiring me to architect a router or something where it pertains? I could ask you questions in my domain that you'd be hopeless at an…

The other thing the question tests for is rigidity of thinking. You can answer the question - pick whatever part of the stack you're familiar with and explain what's going on there. If you're a web developer, talk about how the browser loads the HTML for the page, then pulls out the tags and fetches CSS for them, then executes any tags. It sees a tag, then an , and uses that to render the query box. If you type and t…

> If you're a backend database guy, talk about how Google must run a query against a massively sharded database

Apropos of nothing, I hadn't realized that "shard" in reference to databases had made its way beyond MMOs, and I think it's hilarious.

Ultima Online pioneered the MMO concept of using different copies of the game world, each with their own server and backing database, to partition a large player base into manageable chunks. These were called "shards" in reference to the shards of the evil wizard Mondain's Gem of Immortality, which was shattered at the end of the original 1980 Ultima and caused problems in later games. The word was informally used for later MMOs' servers, and apparently it's now formally used for horizontal database partitions.

So, if anyone asks you what a "shard" is in a database context, I recommend you start by telling them about the terrible legacy of the wicked sorcerer Mondain.

Re: “What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

#122

Post by spydum »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #53
Animats wrote: post #31

So far, nobody has filled in the section on how a key-press event works its way through the OS, up to the window system, to the application, and to the code handling the input text box. Then there's what's happening at the Google end. Before search personalization, popular queries ("google", "Britney Spears") were handled by caches the first Google machine you talked to, and never even reached the search engine. Sinc…

There's a whole lot of BGP and stuff like that on the interconnect, too.

BGP, and usually some internal routing protocol on each end of the ASN path (likely something like OSPF). But those only inform the forwarding tables, they aren't an active component of the request. You could always go into the forwarding logic of the routers and switches as it moves through the network and TCAMs/DRAM.. As others mentioned, it's practically endless.

Re: “What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

#124

Post by jwatte »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #119
cbr wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google cluster identifies you even when you are not logged in and browse in private mode with no cookies Source?

Not saying that Google itself does this (I doubt it, honestly), but browser fingerprinting does exist and your browser is, more than likely, unique: https://panopticlick.eff.org It isn't entirely unconceivable that a site may use browser fingerprinting to track you even when not signed in by associating your unique browser fingerprint to your account.

Note that browser fingerprinting is a good thing for those fighting online fraud (such as credit card chargebacks.)

Re: “What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

#125

Post by jwatte »

cbr wrote: post #120
mynameisvlad wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying that Google itself does this (I doubt it, honestly), but browser fingerprinting does exist and your browser is, more than likely, unique: https://panopticlick.eff.org It isn't entirely unconceivable that a site may use browser fingerprinting to track you even when not signed in by associating your unique browser fingerprint to your account.

I agree that it's possible. I would be extremely surprised if Google were doing this, however, so I'm interested in why rasz_pl thinks they are.

I would be surprised if Google didn't use per-ip reputation and targeting at some level of their stack.

Re: “What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

#126

Post by tough-crowd »

brownbat wrote: post #102
CPLX wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And someone who says "duh it shows the Google homepage" is destined for the executive team.

The executive answer begins "It connects you with the world, but moreso, connects us all as a society..." (This answer continues for two hours.)

Haha because executives are long winded.

Re: “What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

#127

Post by jtheory »

MarcScott wrote: post #107

I'm going to watch this carefully. Once it's complete I plan to base a scheme of work on it for my secondary school CS students.

"Once it's complete" indeed... and to draw that particular random line in the sand?

Re: “What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

#128

Post by jacquesm »

jwatte wrote: post #124
mynameisvlad wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying that Google itself does this (I doubt it, honestly), but browser fingerprinting does exist and your browser is, more than likely, unique: https://panopticlick.eff.org It isn't entirely unconceivable that a site may use browser fingerprinting to track you even when not signed in by associating your unique browser fingerprint to your account.

Note that browser fingerprinting is a good thing for those fighting online fraud (such as credit card chargebacks.)

Credit card chargebacks are not always fraud.

Re: “What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

#129

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

dead10ck wrote: post #45

Wow, judging from the comments in here, there are a lot of people that are in management positions that are horrible judges of technical ability and value. This question asks so many things that it doesn't really ask anything at all. No matter which field they decide dive into, if they can dive into any at all, it sheds no light whatsoever on their ability to solve problems, or their ability to learn new difficult co…

>it sheds no light whatsoever on their ability to solve problems, or their ability to learn new difficult concepts.

This is of course correct; one way to check for these is to ask specific questions for prior job experience; however the top-dog companies like to hire promising graduates right out of college and so they don't wish to cut them off by asking these questions.

Re: “What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?”

#130

Post by runeks »

eblume wrote: post #46

This question always reminded me of the (excellent) book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". The author explores the philosophy of engineering as being the art of separating things in to their components. At the risk of spoiling some of the book, a major struggle the author goes through is the paradox that there seems to be an infinite number of ways to split some kinds of systems, with no productive work ev…

Good point. Reading this article, it also crossed my mind that the level of detail is always arbitrary. There is no "right" level of detail, that explains everything. We can keep going infinitely more into detail, explaining each step in more and more detail.

This article could just as well have included an explanation of how and why electrons travel from one point to another, or "the quantum effects that govern this" (a figurative example).

A metaphor for this that references the world of electronics is the ability to always increase the resolution of a display. We can keep going on, although the human eye might not be able to pick up a difference after a certain point.

Perhaps there is also a limit to the usefulness of increasing the level of detail in an explanation, as this article does, just as there's a limit to the usefulness of increasing display resolution.

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