Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I Left Google

blogs.msdn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 322 posts

Re: Why I Left Google

#311

Post by 4ad »

Drbble wrote: post #294
luriel wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Google is resistant to any change that might improve engineer productivity beyond the rather plodding rate it has now. C++ and Java are the real house languages; Scala's not even on the table. Python is listed as a house language so Google can still hire people but it's rarely used and nearly deprecated in production. Google is developing Go precisely to improve engineer productivity, so this claim is rather susp…

Google developing Go as a research project, and Google using Go in a non-trivial number of production systems, are two very different scenarios.

Serving billion youtube requests per day is a trivial production system?

Re: Why I Left Google

#312

Post by RiotingPacifist »

beatle wrote: post #245
jrockway wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is integration a problem? It's working pretty well for Apple.

Because Apple sells products. Google sells YOUR personal information that you do NOT want to share to advertisers. Big difference.

It seems like your confusing bad management with having a business model you don't like.

Re: Why I Left Google

#313

Post by danmaz74 »

Drbble wrote: post #296
danmaz74 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is Google itself that is creating the impression that Google+ is critical to its future, just look how much you're pushing it everywhere. By the way, I use G+ and like it more than facebook, but I also think that there is only one serious way for Google to differentiate it enough from Facebook to make it a compelling alternative in the long run: Make G+ the open alternative to Facebook; ie, make it THE platfor…

Haha! I told Vic Gundotra to do exactly what you say (and I am surely not the only one), he said "maybe later". Google used to be about the open web, but with Chrome. Experiments and now the way they built G+ (need a Google account to view shared photo link?!), it is clear they have fallen in line with the walled garden "a little evil is OK" contingent.

But Chrome is open sourced, so that isn't really closing down the open web... G+ is a different beast!

Re: Why I Left Google

#314

Post by thomasdullien »

apenwarr wrote: post #261
Yawnoc wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, 20% doesn't require any approval. Your manager can ask you to set it aside during crunch time (one quarter max) and you might eventually get dinged if you're doing something wildly irrelevant. 20% time is alive and well and not at all "deprecated".

Technically the particular project you work on is supposed to require approval. So far I haven't met any manager who does anything but rubber stamp anything you suggest, but theoretically you could get one who is picky, and that would defeat the point of 20% time a bit if it actually happens.

Seconded. In theory, a manager could veto a 20% project, but I have never heard of it happen.

I personally think "managerial approval" is just for 3 things:

1) If someone decides to do something wrong/illegal as 20% project, the manager should've caught this (so this 'approval' is really a 'we reserve the right to blame the manager if things go wrong') ;) 2) People probably want their 20% project (and progress therewith) to be factored into their perf, as such, their managers need to know about it. 3) So that people don't pick clearly fraudulent 20% projects (such as 'my 20% project is to stay at home and watch TV')

Re: Why I Left Google

#315

Post by lurker14 »

4ad wrote: post #311
Drbble wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google developing Go as a research project, and Google using Go in a non-trivial number of production systems, are two very different scenarios.

Serving billion youtube requests per day is a trivial production system?

Vitess https://code.google.com/p/vitess/ ?

That's 1. A trivial number, if not a trivial system.

Re: Why I Left Google

#316

Post by kragen »

evgen wrote: post #134
kragen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delete your Google cookies and only log in to Google+ in an Incognito window. Then you won't have the "wants me to login to my google+ account just to view the article" problem ever again.

Or just skip it. If getting there requires manipulating cookies and incognito mode there had better be something special at the other end; in 99.99% of the links to G+ the payoff is not worth the bother.

You only have to delete your cookies once, and the main benefit is not that you can read stuff on G+, but that Google isn't tracking everything you read. As closely.

Re: Why I Left Google

#317

Post by Karunamon »

Drbble wrote: post #299
Karunamon wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Picasa is about lock in. Really now? http://www.dataliberation.org/takeout-products/picasa-web-al...

Being able to leave once an for all is different from open interoperability with other systems. Both are a form of lock in protection, and Picasa only supports the former.

"Lock in" is a particularly loaded term, and I have to disagree with its use here in that they've given you a way to export everything should you want to. Not doing the work to integrate with other system is not "lock in".

Re: Why I Left Google

#318

Post by euyyn »

apenwarr wrote: post #263
DanBC wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers of people using + operator correctly were tiny. (1 in 600 people.)

If there are 6 billion people on earth, that's 10 millon of them.

The statistic is over the total number of users, not over the total number of human beings, or the total number of human beings that ever existed, or the number of atoms in the universe.

Re: Why I Left Google

#319

Post by tambourine_man »

Karunamon wrote: post #186
tambourine_man wrote: post #150

I dream of a day when the world will wake from this social sharing bad trip. Facebook is not only making the web worse, by breaking most of its core assumptions, but it's destroying one of the greatest companies to arise in recent years. Google has made accessing the world's information transformatively faster and easier. Facebook has made blogging more pervasive and closed.

>Facebook has made blogging more pervasive and closed. I've got to disagree with you there. Blogging in general refers to longer-form posts than the average status update field on Facebook is comfortable for. If you're going the angle I think you are, you could make the same argument of Twitter.

Facebook inspires a shorter writing than a typical blog post, yes.

But Facebook is in a completly different category than Twitter.

Tweets are encouraged to be public. You don't need to fill in a form a agree to EULA to follow a link.

Anyone can compete with Google because the information they are indexing is public. Last “App” I did for Facebook required me to give them my cel phone number to access the information the user consent in giving.

Re: Why I Left Google

#320

Post by tambourine_man »

Karunamon wrote: post #186
tambourine_man wrote: post #150

I dream of a day when the world will wake from this social sharing bad trip. Facebook is not only making the web worse, by breaking most of its core assumptions, but it's destroying one of the greatest companies to arise in recent years. Google has made accessing the world's information transformatively faster and easier. Facebook has made blogging more pervasive and closed.

>Facebook has made blogging more pervasive and closed. I've got to disagree with you there. Blogging in general refers to longer-form posts than the average status update field on Facebook is comfortable for. If you're going the angle I think you are, you could make the same argument of Twitter.

Facebook inspires a shorter writing than a typical blog post, yes.

But Facebook is in a completly different category than Twitter.

Tweets are encouraged to be public. You don't need to fill in a form or agree to an EULA to follow a link.

Anyone can compete with Google in search because the information they are indexing is public. Last “App” I did for Facebook required me to give them my cel phone number to access the information the user consent in giving.

Post reply on HN