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An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools

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Re: An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools

#2
Nice, but tools are only one thing to miss about development at Google (or any other of the FAANGs).

I found the more meaningful thing is the ecosystem of smart engineers, and the ability to find others who face similar problems, exchange ideas and solutions. It's a skill of its own to find these people and learn their "language", but once you do, it's a huge multiplier that is hard to find elsewhere.

Re: An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools

#3
Refreshing article! For people with less time check out https://github.com/jhuangtw/xg2xg which tracks open source implementations of Google internal tools (also linked in the article)

Also I have been looking to move away from Makefiles and bash scripts and Bazel does come up more often. What are your experiences working it and how does it compare to Blaze?

Re: An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools

#4
post #2

Nice, but tools are only one thing to miss about development at Google (or any other of the FAANGs). I found the more meaningful thing is the ecosystem of smart engineers, and the ability to find others who face similar problems, exchange ideas and solutions. It's a skill of its own to find these people and learn their "language", but once you do, it's a huge multiplier that is hard to find elsewhere.

[deleted]

Re: An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools

#5
I also think that one of the parts of the success is that insane amount of system configs and other data are also source controlled or provide other means textual access for search (bigquery, etc).

This makes code search a super power.

(googler)

Re: An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools

#6
post #5

I also think that one of the parts of the success is that insane amount of system configs and other data are also source controlled or provide other means textual access for search (bigquery, etc). This makes code search a super power. (googler)

Isn't *this...common? IaaS is good practice these days. I work at an eCommerce co and we do this as well.

Re: An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools

#7
post #5

I also think that one of the parts of the success is that insane amount of system configs and other data are also source controlled or provide other means textual access for search (bigquery, etc). This makes code search a super power. (googler)

Isn't *this...common? IaaS is good practice these days. I work at an eCommerce co and we do this as well.

Good practice, yes. Common... it depends.

Re: An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools

#8
Isn't code search more table stakes nowadays? Both github and gitlab have it.

There isn't anything said about end to end, integration or functional testing here. I'm in a world where everyone hacks their own system together onto the same runtime, leading to some wonky outcomes and lots of operational support. Would be interesting if there was a 'google' way to do it.

Re: An ex-Googler’s guide to dev tools

#10
post #8

Isn't code search more table stakes nowadays? Both github and gitlab have it. There isn't anything said about end to end, integration or functional testing here. I'm in a world where everyone hacks their own system together onto the same runtime, leading to some wonky outcomes and lots of operational support. Would be interesting if there was a 'google' way to do it.

Last I checked, GitHub's code search was so bad that it's useless. There's definitely a use for good code search.
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