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No, Google employs far too many developers for the median to be close to 'elite'. I'm sure there are elite teams at Google, but I very much doubt the average Go

No, Google employs far too many developers for the median to be close to 'elite'. I'm sure there are elite teams at Google, but I very much doubt the average Googler is, and that's probably been the case for a decade at this point. The famous Rob Pike quote sums it up quite well: > The key point here is our programmers are Googlers, they’re not researchers. They’re typically, fairly young, fresh out of school, probably learned Java, maybe learned C or C++, probably learned Python. They’re not capable of understanding a brilliant language but we want to use them to build good software.

xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
I think Rob Pike's commentary on Go is why I decided to go into research. Google hires kilotons of developers and pays them gigadollars every year, then makes them work in dumbed-down languages because they can't be trusted with power tools. How has our industry gone so far astray that we pay people hundreds of thousands of dollars a year when they can't even understand generics? In what universe does it make sense to design an entire new language rather than offering new hires two months of training? Why are we pretending programming is a skilled trade when the things people actually wind up doing are so easy they can be learned in three months at a boot camp? Rob Pike is a legend. He is the man who brought us Plan 9. How is this what he wound up working on?
- saddlerustle 6y ago
  The skills the median google engineer needs can absolutely be learned in three months at a boot camp but simultaneously those skills are worth a million a year to google. There's massive returns to scale of the infrastructure for effective software development, but very few organisations have figured it out.
  - NegativeLatency 6y ago
    having a near monopoly on online ad sales and search doesn’t hurt either
- eternalsculptor 6y ago
  >can't understand generics Is this really true? We learned about generics in college so I assumed that everyone knew it (especially if they work at Google).
  - sascha_sl 6y ago
    OP is taking a swing at Go's lack of generics. Just because a language focuses on simplicity does not automatically make it bad. People use Go to solve complex issues, so it makes total sense none of that working memory should be occupied with understanding language features, even if they're as simple as generics. A more extreme way to write Go is "space shuttle style" Code, as used in the Kubernetes Volume Controller, a radically different approach to "I want all my complex features that I can use to shoot myself in the foot". You might be able to handle a firearm, but we have plenty of injuries and deaths through mishandled firearms every year, don't think you're exempt from that (or if you insist, at least do not talk down the need for safety). https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/pkg/controller/volume/persistentvolume/pv_controller.go#L58 https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/pkg/con...
  - xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
    As someone else noted, I am taking a swing at Go's lack of generics. More to the point, I am criticizing the reason for that. Designing a simple language is fine. I like simple languages a lot. Go was designed not because simple languages are good for some jobs but because Google decided their engineers aren't up to using more powerful tools. I don't know Go. I've only written about 200 lines of it. I don't pretend to know whether or not it's any good. What I do know is that the reasoning behind it is bizarre to me.
    - sdenton4 6y ago
      /Google decided their engineers aren't up to using more powerful tools./ I think you fundamentally misunderstand the reason for using Go. It's NOT about whether a developer is/isn't capable of understanding how to write code with a particular set of tools. Instead, it's almost entirely about making that code simple to read and understand at a later date. Complex/'powerful' language tools complicate reading, which slows down later fixes and small modifications at best, and at worst leads to additional bugs in later iterations over the code. Thus, the core belief in Go's design is that 'powerful' languages are optimizing for entirely the wrong things. From my perspective, this is a good change of focus. I want simple tools that I don't have to worry about. We have finite attention, so we should actively try to reduce cognitive load whenever possible, as it frees up attention for other things. For example, it's a much better use of my time to think about bayesian optimization than whether an array pointer is being safely handled... If I need to worry less about the latter, I have more time to think about the former.
- anonymousab 6y ago
  Professionals with many years of experience could and would still make mistakes with C and C++. And many mistakes are very costly at Google's scale. Wanting to make the situation better through a simpler, safer fit-for-purpose tool doesn't mean an industry is flawed anymore than the prevalence of sawstops means that carpentry is flawed.
  - xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
    Go is not a particularly safe tool. It is a simple tool. That isn't the same thing. Sophisticated type systems are designed to improve safety at the expense of adding abstraction.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Go makes concurrency easier (sorta) and eliminates some memory safety issues. But if you want a tool that helps you write more correct programs, you really need a much stronger type system than Go offers.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    Holy spin. Rob Pike was explicitly talking about young inexperienced programmers who are 'not capable of understanding a brilliant language.' He wasn't talking about experienced developers and made that as clear as he possibly could. Go is made simple for novices, not safe for veterans.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - SR2Z 6y ago
      You don't really get a choice when you decide you're going to write a project in a language. Senior devs will be required to work in the same language as the junior devs.
  - reificator 6y ago
    > a simpler, safer fit-for-purpose tool Generics nothing more or less than a safety feature. Right now code that would use generics instead use the empty interface instead, which is effectively opting out of the type system entirely. I'm personally ambivalent on whether go adds generics or not but framing a lack of generics as a safety feature is the most absurd thing I've heard today.
- spion 6y ago
  Its simple: he is not really a legend at all.
- robocat 6y ago
  > then makes them work in dumbed-down languages because they can't be trusted with power tools. The languages are “dumbed” down so that the resulting code is intelligible to those that work on the system, so that the code is communication. Overly smart tools allow a smart person to make mistakes so complicated that nobody can fix it (even themselves). Or a smart person builds great solutions so complex that nobody else can work on the code. A good engineer chooses restrictions that help themselves and others build better solutions that a team can work on.

xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago

I think Rob Pike's commentary on Go is why I decided to go into research. Google hires kilotons of developers and pays them gigadollars every year, then makes them work in dumbed-down languages because they can't be trusted with power tools. How has our industry gone so far astray that we pay people hundreds of thousands of dollars a year when they can't even understand generics? In what universe does it make sense to design an entire new language rather than offering new hires two months of training? Why are we pretending programming is a skilled trade when the things people actually wind up doing are so easy they can be learned in three months at a boot camp? Rob Pike is a legend. He is the man who brought us Plan 9. How is this what he wound up working on?

saddlerustle 6y ago
The skills the median google engineer needs can absolutely be learned in three months at a boot camp but simultaneously those skills are worth a million a year to google. There's massive returns to scale of the infrastructure for effective software development, but very few organisations have figured it out.
- NegativeLatency 6y ago
  having a near monopoly on online ad sales and search doesn’t hurt either
eternalsculptor 6y ago
>can't understand generics Is this really true? We learned about generics in college so I assumed that everyone knew it (especially if they work at Google).
- sascha_sl 6y ago
  OP is taking a swing at Go's lack of generics. Just because a language focuses on simplicity does not automatically make it bad. People use Go to solve complex issues, so it makes total sense none of that working memory should be occupied with understanding language features, even if they're as simple as generics. A more extreme way to write Go is "space shuttle style" Code, as used in the Kubernetes Volume Controller, a radically different approach to "I want all my complex features that I can use to shoot myself in the foot". You might be able to handle a firearm, but we have plenty of injuries and deaths through mishandled firearms every year, don't think you're exempt from that (or if you insist, at least do not talk down the need for safety). https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/pkg/controller/volume/persistentvolume/pv_controller.go#L58 https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/pkg/con...
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
  As someone else noted, I am taking a swing at Go's lack of generics. More to the point, I am criticizing the reason for that. Designing a simple language is fine. I like simple languages a lot. Go was designed not because simple languages are good for some jobs but because Google decided their engineers aren't up to using more powerful tools. I don't know Go. I've only written about 200 lines of it. I don't pretend to know whether or not it's any good. What I do know is that the reasoning behind it is bizarre to me.
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    /Google decided their engineers aren't up to using more powerful tools./ I think you fundamentally misunderstand the reason for using Go. It's NOT about whether a developer is/isn't capable of understanding how to write code with a particular set of tools. Instead, it's almost entirely about making that code simple to read and understand at a later date. Complex/'powerful' language tools complicate reading, which slows down later fixes and small modifications at best, and at worst leads to additional bugs in later iterations over the code. Thus, the core belief in Go's design is that 'powerful' languages are optimizing for entirely the wrong things. From my perspective, this is a good change of focus. I want simple tools that I don't have to worry about. We have finite attention, so we should actively try to reduce cognitive load whenever possible, as it frees up attention for other things. For example, it's a much better use of my time to think about bayesian optimization than whether an array pointer is being safely handled... If I need to worry less about the latter, I have more time to think about the former.
anonymousab 6y ago
Professionals with many years of experience could and would still make mistakes with C and C++. And many mistakes are very costly at Google's scale. Wanting to make the situation better through a simpler, safer fit-for-purpose tool doesn't mean an industry is flawed anymore than the prevalence of sawstops means that carpentry is flawed.
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
  Go is not a particularly safe tool. It is a simple tool. That isn't the same thing. Sophisticated type systems are designed to improve safety at the expense of adding abstraction.
- kelnos 6y ago
  Go makes concurrency easier (sorta) and eliminates some memory safety issues. But if you want a tool that helps you write more correct programs, you really need a much stronger type system than Go offers.
- stretchcat 6y ago
  Holy spin. Rob Pike was explicitly talking about young inexperienced programmers who are 'not capable of understanding a brilliant language.' He wasn't talking about experienced developers and made that as clear as he possibly could. Go is made simple for novices, not safe for veterans.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - SR2Z 6y ago
    You don't really get a choice when you decide you're going to write a project in a language. Senior devs will be required to work in the same language as the junior devs.
- reificator 6y ago
  > a simpler, safer fit-for-purpose tool Generics nothing more or less than a safety feature. Right now code that would use generics instead use the empty interface instead, which is effectively opting out of the type system entirely. I'm personally ambivalent on whether go adds generics or not but framing a lack of generics as a safety feature is the most absurd thing I've heard today.
spion 6y ago
Its simple: he is not really a legend at all.
robocat 6y ago
> then makes them work in dumbed-down languages because they can't be trusted with power tools. The languages are “dumbed” down so that the resulting code is intelligible to those that work on the system, so that the code is communication. Overly smart tools allow a smart person to make mistakes so complicated that nobody can fix it (even themselves). Or a smart person builds great solutions so complex that nobody else can work on the code. A good engineer chooses restrictions that help themselves and others build better solutions that a team can work on.