Re:Ask HN: Gmail account security
by throw10920 on Monday January 24, 2022 @02:34PM
(#30062748)
I'm also a developer and an educator using Classroom for a small class. Your insight makes it crystal clear why I always thought that Classroom was completely insane, to the point where I was wondering why nobody else said anything and maybe I just wasn't "getting it" - no, it's because it's basically a clever hack that's a Googler's side project (that maybe now has a small team around it).
Re:Ask HN: Gmail account security
by ChicagoBoy11 on Monday January 24, 2022 @02:46PM
(#30062937)
As a fun exercise, I'd encourage you to peruse even their apps script APIs and see how quickly you can actually get something like "google classroom" up and running for yourself, minus some of the UI candy. Truth-be-told their documentation and what they expose to you is pretty rich, and along the way you then start seeing exactly why "Google Classroom" things are the way they are hehehe.
This is enlightening.
I do see they have a marketing / landing page which makes me feel there is a product charter beyond half-a-SWE: https://edu.google.com/products/classroom/
The not-so-brilliant-and-clever part is that by virtue of being free and Google having so many schools captive with free GoogleEDU + Chromebooks, this is something running millions' of kids' schooling, especially now during COVID. But it seems, at every indication, to continue to be someone's pet Google Drive API project, so you see some insane feature omissions because it is clear it would probably require some sort of actual original development work besides the very minimal UI and overhead that Classroom provides. I need to thread lightly, though, 'cause I've made decent money (and had fun) implementing quite a few of these for my own school, but every single time its been clear to me that EVERY OTHER SCHOOL IN THE UNIVERSE would also want/need things like that.