Re:Software Engineering at Google (2017)
by stcredzero on Friday January 04, 2019 @01:35PM
(#18826467)
I’m not convinced this works so great for Google. Some rewrites are very noticeable as a user, and things in the UI frequently shift around for no discernible reason. Perhaps worse, they seem unable to get below a certain level of bugginess in products like Google Maps and Gmail. Perhaps because a new round of rewrites always introduces new bugs before all of the old ones ever get fixed.
Perhaps their metrics tell them that all of this is fine, I don’t know. But then, you have to realize Google has so much money they don’t really have to spend it very efficiently.
The user experience ranges between good to mediocre to bad, depending. Google is simply too rich and powerful to care. So long as the goose keeps laying the golden eggs, they can just keep going along and patting themselves on the back.
Re:Software Engineering at Google (2017)
by erik_seaberg on Friday January 04, 2019 @04:27PM
(#18827795)
As jwz put it, "It hardly seems worth even having a bug system if the frequency of from-scratch rewrites always outstrips the pace of bug fixing. Why not be honest and resign yourself to the fact that version 0.8 is followed by version 0.8, which is then followed by version 0.8?"
Re:Software Engineering at Google (2017)
by walshemj on Friday January 04, 2019 @07:00AM
(#18823401)
I saw this a BT where on system was rewritten in OWS (Oracle Web Services) used 15 Person Years and around a Million Quid - Not the best use of shareholders money.
But some one got to tick some boxes on there promotion track
Re:Software Engineering at Google (2017)
by polskibus on Friday January 04, 2019 @03:07PM
(#18827198)
Many enterprises are rewriting their apps to the cloud stacks for no good reason, at a great capex and later opex.
Re:Software Engineering at Google (2017)
by heavenlyblue on Friday January 04, 2019 @07:09AM
(#18823434)
Well, but that money was certainly not needed for someone else if it was so readily available.
Perhaps their metrics tell them that all of this is fine, I don’t know. But then, you have to realize Google has so much money they don’t really have to spend it very efficiently. For everyone else, this approach to rewrites seems like an extremely expensive way to produce software that’s not even all that great.