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Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

students.googleblog.com

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Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

#151

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #96
djrogers wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a senior engineer at Google could have implemented this compression and it would still be HN worthy, No, I doubt it would be. How many of the hundreds of little features in the google play store have been posted on HN with an article about the person who implemented them? Also, I find it more than a little presumptuous of you to assume that any scoffing is due to sexism. I see the exact same cynicism and lack of aw…

1.5 petabytes of savings in data usage per day is not HN worthy? I've seen far less significant improvements get voted to the front page with hundreds of comments. This is more than a small tweak to the Play store. Agreed on the high level of cynicism here -- we've also come to expect that. Moreover I never come to HN (my account is five years old) to point out sexism/racism -- it's just too sensitive and difficult o…

> I have no other explanation for it (believe me, I want one)

Um, the fact that that her work saved that much bandwidth is a happy accident of the fact that she was at Google and assigned on a project that had a high user volume. Other than passing the intern interview loop, that took no absolutely no merit or effort on her part whatsoever.

Moreover, the blog post describes the work as "to add support for Brotli for both new app installs and app update." I mean, hundreds of thousands of developers use third-party libraries to add functionality every single day of the year. Some "achievement".

Please take off the X-ism colored glasses, dajohnson89. I promise that it makes the world look like a better place.

Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

#152

Post by paulddraper »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #96
djrogers wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a senior engineer at Google could have implemented this compression and it would still be HN worthy, No, I doubt it would be. How many of the hundreds of little features in the google play store have been posted on HN with an article about the person who implemented them? Also, I find it more than a little presumptuous of you to assume that any scoffing is due to sexism. I see the exact same cynicism and lack of aw…

1.5 petabytes of savings in data usage per day is not HN worthy? I've seen far less significant improvements get voted to the front page with hundreds of comments. This is more than a small tweak to the Play store. Agreed on the high level of cynicism here -- we've also come to expect that. Moreover I never come to HN (my account is five years old) to point out sexism/racism -- it's just too sensitive and difficult o…

I agree with you.

To be fair, 10% is the better number attributed to this change.

That ten percent amounts to 1.5 petabytes is a credit to the Google Play Store / Android platform.

Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

#153

Post by balls187 »

pmiller2 wrote: post #136
balls187 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of my friends who have interned at Google felt insignificant The world has changed a lot. When I was in college, I sought an internship specifically to have real-world experience on my resume to get a leg up when it came time to find a job.

Why do you say the world has changed? That's still the primary purpose of internships.

Per the parent's comment, Google needs to market their internships because there is little value to them, because as interns his friends felt insignificant.

I would say in my day, a Google Internship would have been amazing experience, even if I wasn't special and unique, however, Google wasn't really a the massive behemoth in 2001 (I first started using Google at my internship when the head of IT told me about it).

Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

#155

Post by jordache »

16bytes wrote: post #150
jordache wrote: post #63

she didn't create a compression algorithm. More akin to enabling GZIP in IIS...

If you had an intern that was responsible for turning GZIP on in IIS for a website that had 1B users it starts to become much more of an accomplishment. Even small changes at that scale require careful analysis and coordination.

true.

However my response was more to the click baity title giving the automatic impression an intern came up with an innovative approach that netted tremendous result.

Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

#156

Post by therealmarv »

forgottenpass wrote: post #109

I bet your hacker excellent skills cannot save 1.5 PB traffic per day. Your own shitty[0] remark highlights why your post doesn't have much of a point. The reason the impact of this change is worth mentioning at all is because google already wields the centralized control needed to effect change to such a massive volume of internet traffic on it's whims. Edit: [0] "shitty" is not a quality rating, but my assessment o…

Although you don't deserve an reply for your rudeness. Let's say I can get into a position and make some good work and it counts (good, is not it?). Let's say you think you can also make something meaningful and even better and you are currently not in the position to currently make it count for anybody (why then disrespect others people work?). This is something you are lacking: respect.

Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

#157

Post by skybrian »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #151
dajohnson89 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.5 petabytes of savings in data usage per day is not HN worthy? I've seen far less significant improvements get voted to the front page with hundreds of comments. This is more than a small tweak to the Play store. Agreed on the high level of cynicism here -- we've also come to expect that. Moreover I never come to HN (my account is five years old) to point out sexism/racism -- it's just too sensitive and difficult o…

> I have no other explanation for it (believe me, I want one) Um, the fact that that her work saved that much bandwidth is a happy accident of the fact that she was at Google and assigned on a project that had a high user volume. Other than passing the intern interview loop, that took no absolutely no merit or effort on her part whatsoever. Moreover, the blog post describes the work as "to add support for Brotli for…

It's of course true that at Google you have a chance to make a bigger impact. (Not guaranteed - it depends on what project the intern is given, and that's kind of random.) And interns do get lots of support.

But, to say that there is "no merit or effort on her part" is an insult to all the good work interns do while they're here. They're not coasting.

Seems like you're so eager to tear this down that you'll say anything.

Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

#158

Post by ygaf »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #134
ygaf wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*M GB M is well-known in headlines as million. A GB is something people appreciate the size of, TB not as much, and PB is definitely not in most people's vocab.

> M is well-known in headlines as million. In which case it doesn't get combined with an SI prefix because the financial "M" is not the same as the SI Mega. Jamming two SI prefixes together is plain ignorant.

I naturally read the title's GB as GiB (making only one SI prefix), but I don't hold anything against other people being more precise readers.

Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

#159

Post by gribbly »

bhouston wrote: post #52

I bet switching to LZMA would have saved even more. LZMA beats Brotli nearly every time. zStandard would likely have worked better as well. Brotli is very slow to compress.

I agree that LZMA beats Brotli in compression in the majority of cases (not by much), zStandard does not however.

The thing that makes Brotli attractive though, is that it has high compression (again, very close to LZMA, sometimes even better) while decompressing MUCH faster than LZMA.

The big downside is that it is very slow in compressing, which makes it mainly suitable for 'compress once, decompress MANY times' type data.

Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads

#160

Post by FT_intern »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #96
djrogers wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a senior engineer at Google could have implemented this compression and it would still be HN worthy, No, I doubt it would be. How many of the hundreds of little features in the google play store have been posted on HN with an article about the person who implemented them? Also, I find it more than a little presumptuous of you to assume that any scoffing is due to sexism. I see the exact same cynicism and lack of aw…

1.5 petabytes of savings in data usage per day is not HN worthy? I've seen far less significant improvements get voted to the front page with hundreds of comments. This is more than a small tweak to the Play store. Agreed on the high level of cynicism here -- we've also come to expect that. Moreover I never come to HN (my account is five years old) to point out sexism/racism -- it's just too sensitive and difficult o…

The throughput isn't really that important. 10 GB of savings per day where the intern actually implemented the algorithm would be more newsworthy.
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