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Lessons from 14 years at Google

addyosmani.com

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Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#461

Post by edg5000 »

> Before you build, exhaust the question: “What would happen if we just… didn’t?”

Well said! So many times I have seen great products slide down. If they just froze the features and UI, and just fixed performance, compatibility and stability issues for years, things would be better. (this applies to any company). Many programs I use are years old. They are great programs and don't need constant change! Updates can only make it worse at that point (minus critical security issues, compatbility, performance regressions)

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#462

Post by eviks »

multjoy wrote: post #251
mike_hearn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. There was no beancounter takeover and it never was so obsessed. I worked there from 2006-2014 in engineering roles and found this statement was particularly jarring: "User obsession means spending time in support tickets, talking to users,…

It is an almost universal fact that dealing with retail customers is something that is left to the lowest paid, lowest status workers and often outsourced and now increasingly left to LLM chatbots. While you obviously can't have highly paid engineers tied up dealing with user support tickets, there is a lot to be said for at least some exposure to the coal face.

> While you obviously can't have highly paid engineers tied up dealing with user support tickets,

You obviously can, that's one of the more visceral way to make them aware of the pain they cause to real people with their work, which sticks better, or simply serves as a reminder there are humans on the other side. There are even examples of higher paid CEOs engaging, we can see some of that on social media

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#463

Post by sva_ »

Sephr wrote: post #287

This feels somewhat hypocritical coming from Addy. Addy Osmani plagiarized my code and 'apologized' years later by publishing an article on his website[1] that he has never linked to from his social media accounts. I cannot accept his apology until he actually syndicates it with his followers. Seems relevant to note this behavior in light of points "6. Your code doesn’t advocate for you. People do.", "7. The best cod…

15 years on that trivial piece of code man. Reminds me of Dostoyevsky's "Notes from Underground".

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#464

Post by powerapple »

rictic wrote: post #450
elmomle wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a highly idealized view that I hope we can agree doesn't completely jive with what we see in society today. If a small number of shareholders reap all the profits, the vast majority of the benefit from automation flows to them, and it's even possible for the lives of average people to get worse as automation increases, as average people then have less leverage over those who own the companies.

Inflation adjusted incomes are up in the US across the board. The affordability problem is largely the price of housing because it's illegal to build.

because the developing world is producing a lot of things except the housing.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#466

Post by QuadrupleA »

mattacular wrote: post #413
simonw wrote: post #10

I first learned about the "innovation tokens" idea in "Novelty is a loan you repay in outages, hiring, and cognitive overhead" from this, still one of my favorite essays on software architecture: https://boringtechnology.club/ Likewise, "Abstractions don’t remove complexity. They move it to the day you’re on call." made me think of this 23 year old classic from Joel Spolsky, the Law of Leaky Abstractions: https://www…

Nothing can remove complexity other than simplifying requirements. It can only be shuffled around and distributed to other areas of the system (or library, or vendor functionality etc)

You absolutely can remove unnecessary complexity. If your app makes an http request for every result row in a search, you'll simplify by getting them all in one shot.

Learn what's happening a level or two lower, look carefully, and you'll find VAST unnecessary complexity in most modern software.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#467

Post by wafflemaker »

vbezhenar wrote: post #354
Aurornis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The load time improvements had destroyed their company culture. Instead of everyone coming into the office, turning on their computers, and spending the next 10min chatting and drinking coffee One of my early tasks as a junior engineer involved some automation work in a warehouse. It got assigned to me, the junior, because it involved a lot of time working in the warehouse instead of at a comfortable desk. I assume…

One of my work involved automating some process which was very manual and tedious, took a lot of time and there was dedicated employee for that process. After I did the project, it turned out that this job wasn't necessary anymore and that employee was fired. I felt uneasy about the whole situation.

In Norway there's laws for that, but other places do it even without them. You just retrain the person to do something else. He might take a job of a temp that was hoping to get a fast contract (instead of a few weeks at a time during trial period). Other than that, it's good for the person (not losing job) but also for the company - you get a tried person with good work ethics that comes on time. It's not zero cost to find somebody like that.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#468

Post by fragmede »

wafflemaker wrote: post #467
vbezhenar wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my work involved automating some process which was very manual and tedious, took a lot of time and there was dedicated employee for that process. After I did the project, it turned out that this job wasn't necessary anymore and that employee was fired. I felt uneasy about the whole situation.

In Norway there's laws for that, but other places do it even without them. You just retrain the person to do something else. He might take a job of a temp that was hoping to get a fast contract (instead of a few weeks at a time during trial period). Other than that, it's good for the person (not losing job) but also for the company - you get a tried person with good work ethics that comes on time. It's not zero cost…

Yeah the bar for competent is surprising hard to hit. A human being that shows up on time and it's reliable, doesn't have a problem with drugs or alcohol, or has a sick family member and just needs an advance. Good help is hard to find!

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#469

Post by decimalenough »

euifii wrote: post #418
kamranjon wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You posted the code to a public blog page, with no attribution in the code or request of attribution from others, no license, and seemingly intended to share it freely with the world. Then you got an apology, and a second apology. I'm confused about what you think you're owed? The explanation makes perfect sense, the headers were obviously just copied with no malicious intent. What is it that is still bothering you a…

> no license, and seemingly intended to share it freely with the world No license means you don’t intend to share it “freely”, since you didn’t share any rights. By default, you don’t own things people shared on the internet just because it’s there. That being said I’ve even seen people with licenses in their repos who get mad when people used their code, there’s just no telling and it’s best to just treat random sou…

Per Eli's own comment here, the original copied code was straight up public domain and thus does not even require attribution.

https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/pull/684#issuecomment...

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#470

Post by Nevermark »

taftster wrote: post #416
yujzgzc wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Laid off" may be more appropriate than "fired", but in essence, removing the need for costly labor is often the main "value" of any technology. Society as a whole comes out ahead from it, I mean for all the ice transporters and merchants put out of a job by electric refrigeration, and all the sailors put out of a job by modern cargo ships I think we're better off for it. But at the individual level it does make one…

This says a lot as relating to the rise of AI and the fear of job loss. There's going to be displacement in areas we can't predict, but overall it might very well just lead to leveling up the entire workforce.

> it might very well just lead to leveling up the entire workforce.

How could that possibly work?

At some point I could see white collar work trending down fast, in a way that radically increased the value of blue color work. Software gets cheaper much faster than hardware.

But then the innovation and investments go into smart hardware, and robotics effectiveness/cost goes up.

If you can see a path where AI isn't a one-generational transition to most human (economic) obsolescence, I would certainly be interested in the principle or mechanism you see.

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