5 ms·
I was working on the Google Slides team at the time this blog post was originally published back in 2014. Slides and Doc are extremely closely related projects
by erickj 6y ago
I was working on the Google Slides team at the time this blog post was originally published back in 2014.
Slides and Doc are extremely closely related projects, sharing lots of code (and even sitting next to eachother, at the time at least).
Our entire team was impressed with the details of the operational transform protocols that the author was able to reverse engineer, and for the most part get correct. IIRC our engineering director ended up calling the guy up for a lunch.
- londons_explore 6y agoSending around protobufs encoded as JSON makes reverse engineering much easier than you might imagine. I can just imagine what the internal .proto files must look like - especially the arrangement/ordering of fields which tells you how the software design evolved. Two fields with tags next to eachother? They're probably part of the same feature and they were added by the same person as part of the same commit.
- harikb 6y agoEdit: u meant encoded as Json - never mind. Just curious, how does Protobuf make it easier? Easier than Json? Protobuf doesn’t even include field names or readable descriptors - unless of course you are talking about reading client side JS
- londons_explore 6y agoNot easier than JSON, but it's much easier than reversing some C++ structs that some webassembly based application might send over the wire... Messages and submessages and arrays make figuring out what data is what very easy for the most part.
- the_arun 6y agoJust curious - Did you guys hire that person to work for Google? or let them go just with a lunch?
- dylan604 6y agoYou're assuming the person would want to work at Google.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tourist2d 6y agoAnd you're assuming he wouldn't.
- dannyw 6y agoSometimes these chats are just good for network building and professional courtesy. They don’t need to have a direct outcome. The eng director may get some cool ideas from talking to him. The guy might get cool ideas from talking to the eng director. It’s also a free lunch. This guy may want a job at Google in 2 years. He can then email the eng director for a referral.
- mhh__ 6y agoIn that situation (let's say the boss finds his new protege or whatever) would you still have to go through the (in)famous invert a binary tree technical interviews?
- skj 6y agoYes.
- vacheron 6y agoI never understood why people advocate for job offers sans interviews for someone who has interesting projects. IMO any company allowing such practices opens itself up to corruption and nepotism. I've worked for startups and even mid-sized publicly traded companies where managers with sufficient seniority were allowed to extend offers on a whim and it always resulted in friends of said employees being hired. Inevitably, entire teams and even business orgs would be filled with friends or fraternity brothers and their work performance would vary greatly. No one likes interviews but it's crazy that I keep seeing HN users considering this an acceptable practice.