8 ms·

Andy Hertzfeld tells about the team behind Google+ Circles

199 points by dirtyaura 15y ago

orky56 15y ago
You've got to hand it to him for being so classy and humble about it. It's much easier to be quiet and take the praise. Only when someone is modest enough and truly believes that others deserve credit does he/she actually advocate for other people on his/her team.
- heyrhett 15y ago
  It's also refreshing that Google's marketing strategy isn't to perpetuate a myth that Larry Page is the mastermind of everything Google does.
  - orky56 15y ago
    Definitely. Google wants to ensure that people understand it's not a Steve Jobs type situation at Google. Innovation comes from everywhere. I think it's impressive that they could successfully implement a site-wide redesign despite the fragmented nature of the company. Ordered chaos.
    - danilocampos 15y ago
      > Google wants to ensure that people understand it's not a Steve Jobs type situation at Google. I don't mean to be snarky but even a cursory examination of the evidence would make that pretty obvious. A bit of focus and cohesion would do their product quality some good.
      - orky56 15y ago
        I totally agree. Their recent focus on consistent design is a step in the right direction. However, we all know that Engineering wins pretty much every time at Google so I'm especially curious and pleasantly surprised they pulled a product like this off.
- breck 15y ago
  I actually thought it was a humble brag. The word single handedly shouldn't appear in a post if you're trying to be completely humble. Maybe he singlehandedly did the prototype, But how many great designers taught him, how many great designs did he study, before creating it? I'm not trying to criticize him. Um, Designing the biggest new product for the biggest Internet company in the world is 'kinda' a big deal, and he should be proud. I just found this post to be a sneaky humble brag.
  - panacea 15y ago
    >Designing the biggest new product for the biggest Internet company in the world is 'kinda' a big deal Circles is the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel. (I speak in jest of course, and I hope you will forgive a bit of levity on the HN board on a Friday evening)
- sajid 15y ago
  He's not trying to be humble or modest, he's just being honest.
- espinchi 15y ago
  Humble? Look at the first two sentences after the introduction: "I am indeed the main individual behind the interaction design and implementation of the circle editor. I conceived, designed and implemented a compelling prototype for it almost single-handedly". And then, the first sentence of the following paragraph "Steven Levy's excellent Wired article got the story right - I wrote the circle editor and then recently widened my focus to the overall Google Plus user experience." In my opinion, in order for me to believe Andy is actually humble, the last sentence, "Suffice it to say that Google Plus is the creation of large, talented team that I'm proud to be a part of", should have been the first one.
  - brown9-2 15y ago
    I think you are missing what he is actually doing - he states that the part he is wholly responsible for is just one tiny part of the whole, and that all the other credit given to whom is wrong. His first statement is meant to be a bit ironic.
mark_l_watson 15y ago
I thought that the UI was done in GWT, but that was a guess, and I was probably wrong. Anyone know?
- aschobel 15y ago
  Possibly Google Closure If you look at the JS there are comments from Google Closure's testing framework.
  - pkulak 15y ago
    Well, regardless of where the original JS came from it's not surprising that Google would use their JS compiler to package it.
    - nprincigalli 15y ago
      Google's Closure goes way beyond the Closure Compiler:, check it out: http://code.google.com/closure/ http://code.google.com/closure/ . In certain ways, it's similar to Dojo (http://dojotoolkit.org/ http://dojotoolkit.org/) or YUI (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/ http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/)
- neilk 15y ago
  Whenever a new Google site comes out, everyone always asks this question. I can only assume it is asked by people who only know Java and are terrified of JS (which seems to be GWT's primary audience, despite the framework's other advantages). If you want to know, just pop open Firebug or Chrome's Inspector and search for the string "__gwt". I don't see it in Google+. To my knowledge GWT is not actually used that much within Google. Most of the things it solves for developers are solved in other ways within Google anyway, and if you want really low-level control GWT is not the best option.
  - mark_l_watson 15y ago
    Good call on using Firebug - thanks. Recently, I have been using either GWT or SmartGWT much more often than manually writing Javascript. I was curious if Google was consuming their own dog food. For casual UI developers like me (I specialize in other things) GWT really makes it easier to get stuff done. I would be curious about how often GWT is used in small internal Google projects. From reading Mark Chu-Carroll's (very useful) book "Code in the Cloud" I got the impression that he liked to use GWT when he has to do any UIs. He works at Google.
Bud 15y ago
You've got Andy's name wrong, twice, in the headline. It's "Hertzfeld", with a t, and no i.
- dirtyaura 15y ago
  Doh. Thanks for pointing it out, maybe I learn and get it right next time. It seems that I can't edit the title to fix it.
StavrosK 15y ago
I was impressed with the fact that this post was on plus. It's like Twitter, only with no size constraint and with discussions right on the post. I'm excited to see how its usage will pan out.
- ahalam 15y ago
  Buzz is/was the same. If they hadn't forced Buzz down every one's throat, it might have been successful. Buzz + suggest who to follow!
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    Buzz was basically the alpha version of what Google+ appears to be. Google+ has taken all of the good qualities of Buzz (the discussion), but filled in its giant holes. Name that it didn't have it's own home page. Navigated Buzz in Gmail was a pain. I actually preferred to use it on the mobile web page.
- neilk 15y ago
  Or exactly like LiveJournal circa 2002.
  - michaelchisari 15y ago
    Except without nested/threaded discussions. I don't know why the social web loves flat comments so much.
    - speckledjim 15y ago
      The circle of life... We're just in that stage of the cycle. while(true) { Start simple Add features Declare it too complex Abandon it and start again }
    - DannoHung 15y ago
      Flat comments ensure a narrative thread.
nikcub 15y ago
It was nice of him to announce this using a service he single-handedly built in a weekend
- algorias 15y ago
  Subtle trolling always works best
staunch 15y ago
Anyone interested in technology who hasn't read the stories on his site are missing out: http://www.folklore.org http://www.folklore.org
justlearning 15y ago
" I conceived, designed and implemented a compelling prototype for it almost single-handedly, and then wrote a fair percentage of the production ......but that's pretty much as far as it goes." That's some modesty!.
- guptaneil 15y ago
  For only the circles editor. His point is that he had very little to do with the rest of Google+ and nothing to do with the rest of Google's redesigns. He's still taking credit for the significant work he did on Circles, as he should.
- mkramlich 15y ago
  "I conceived, designed and implemented a compelling prototype for it almost single-handedly, and then wrote a fair percentage of the production (...)" I do this all the time, and have done it many times in the past. For some folks, it's really not a big deal, and not even rare/uncommon. Some people are idea rabbits and can spew out architecture/code, new products, etc. Some can't. Some are shades of grey. Also, I'd rather see people be honest about the things they can do, than be dishonest about what they can't.
- brown9-2 15y ago
  He's taking full credit for a relatively minor part of the overall project, and setting the record straight.

199 points by dirtyaura 15y ago

You've got to hand it to him for being so classy and humble about it. It's much easier to be quiet and take the praise. Only when someone is modest enough and truly believes that others deserve credit does he/she actually advocate for other people on his/her team.

heyrhett 15y ago
It's also refreshing that Google's marketing strategy isn't to perpetuate a myth that Larry Page is the mastermind of everything Google does.
- orky56 15y ago
  Definitely. Google wants to ensure that people understand it's not a Steve Jobs type situation at Google. Innovation comes from everywhere. I think it's impressive that they could successfully implement a site-wide redesign despite the fragmented nature of the company. Ordered chaos.
  - danilocampos 15y ago
    > Google wants to ensure that people understand it's not a Steve Jobs type situation at Google. I don't mean to be snarky but even a cursory examination of the evidence would make that pretty obvious. A bit of focus and cohesion would do their product quality some good.
    - orky56 15y ago
      I totally agree. Their recent focus on consistent design is a step in the right direction. However, we all know that Engineering wins pretty much every time at Google so I'm especially curious and pleasantly surprised they pulled a product like this off.
breck 15y ago
I actually thought it was a humble brag. The word single handedly shouldn't appear in a post if you're trying to be completely humble. Maybe he singlehandedly did the prototype, But how many great designers taught him, how many great designs did he study, before creating it? I'm not trying to criticize him. Um, Designing the biggest new product for the biggest Internet company in the world is 'kinda' a big deal, and he should be proud. I just found this post to be a sneaky humble brag.
- panacea 15y ago
  >Designing the biggest new product for the biggest Internet company in the world is 'kinda' a big deal Circles is the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel. (I speak in jest of course, and I hope you will forgive a bit of levity on the HN board on a Friday evening)
sajid 15y ago
He's not trying to be humble or modest, he's just being honest.
espinchi 15y ago
Humble? Look at the first two sentences after the introduction: "I am indeed the main individual behind the interaction design and implementation of the circle editor. I conceived, designed and implemented a compelling prototype for it almost single-handedly". And then, the first sentence of the following paragraph "Steven Levy's excellent Wired article got the story right - I wrote the circle editor and then recently widened my focus to the overall Google Plus user experience." In my opinion, in order for me to believe Andy is actually humble, the last sentence, "Suffice it to say that Google Plus is the creation of large, talented team that I'm proud to be a part of", should have been the first one.
- brown9-2 15y ago
  I think you are missing what he is actually doing - he states that the part he is wholly responsible for is just one tiny part of the whole, and that all the other credit given to whom is wrong. His first statement is meant to be a bit ironic.

mark_l_watson 15y ago

I thought that the UI was done in GWT, but that was a guess, and I was probably wrong. Anyone know?

aschobel 15y ago
Possibly Google Closure If you look at the JS there are comments from Google Closure's testing framework.
- pkulak 15y ago
  Well, regardless of where the original JS came from it's not surprising that Google would use their JS compiler to package it.
  - nprincigalli 15y ago
    Google's Closure goes way beyond the Closure Compiler:, check it out: http://code.google.com/closure/ http://code.google.com/closure/ . In certain ways, it's similar to Dojo (http://dojotoolkit.org/ http://dojotoolkit.org/) or YUI (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/ http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/)
neilk 15y ago
Whenever a new Google site comes out, everyone always asks this question. I can only assume it is asked by people who only know Java and are terrified of JS (which seems to be GWT's primary audience, despite the framework's other advantages). If you want to know, just pop open Firebug or Chrome's Inspector and search for the string "__gwt". I don't see it in Google+. To my knowledge GWT is not actually used that much within Google. Most of the things it solves for developers are solved in other ways within Google anyway, and if you want really low-level control GWT is not the best option.
- mark_l_watson 15y ago
  Good call on using Firebug - thanks. Recently, I have been using either GWT or SmartGWT much more often than manually writing Javascript. I was curious if Google was consuming their own dog food. For casual UI developers like me (I specialize in other things) GWT really makes it easier to get stuff done. I would be curious about how often GWT is used in small internal Google projects. From reading Mark Chu-Carroll's (very useful) book "Code in the Cloud" I got the impression that he liked to use GWT when he has to do any UIs. He works at Google.

Bud 15y ago

You've got Andy's name wrong, twice, in the headline. It's "Hertzfeld", with a t, and no i.

dirtyaura 15y ago
Doh. Thanks for pointing it out, maybe I learn and get it right next time. It seems that I can't edit the title to fix it.

StavrosK 15y ago

I was impressed with the fact that this post was on plus. It's like Twitter, only with no size constraint and with discussions right on the post. I'm excited to see how its usage will pan out.

ahalam 15y ago
Buzz is/was the same. If they hadn't forced Buzz down every one's throat, it might have been successful. Buzz + suggest who to follow!
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Buzz was basically the alpha version of what Google+ appears to be. Google+ has taken all of the good qualities of Buzz (the discussion), but filled in its giant holes. Name that it didn't have it's own home page. Navigated Buzz in Gmail was a pain. I actually preferred to use it on the mobile web page.
neilk 15y ago
Or exactly like LiveJournal circa 2002.
- michaelchisari 15y ago
  Except without nested/threaded discussions. I don't know why the social web loves flat comments so much.
  - speckledjim 15y ago
    The circle of life... We're just in that stage of the cycle. while(true) { Start simple Add features Declare it too complex Abandon it and start again }
  - DannoHung 15y ago
    Flat comments ensure a narrative thread.

nikcub 15y ago

It was nice of him to announce this using a service he single-handedly built in a weekend

algorias 15y ago
Subtle trolling always works best

staunch 15y ago

Anyone interested in technology who hasn't read the stories on his site are missing out: http://www.folklore.org http://www.folklore.org

justlearning 15y ago

" I conceived, designed and implemented a compelling prototype for it almost single-handedly, and then wrote a fair percentage of the production ......but that's pretty much as far as it goes." That's some modesty!.

guptaneil 15y ago
For only the circles editor. His point is that he had very little to do with the rest of Google+ and nothing to do with the rest of Google's redesigns. He's still taking credit for the significant work he did on Circles, as he should.
mkramlich 15y ago
"I conceived, designed and implemented a compelling prototype for it almost single-handedly, and then wrote a fair percentage of the production (...)" I do this all the time, and have done it many times in the past. For some folks, it's really not a big deal, and not even rare/uncommon. Some people are idea rabbits and can spew out architecture/code, new products, etc. Some can't. Some are shades of grey. Also, I'd rather see people be honest about the things they can do, than be dishonest about what they can't.
brown9-2 15y ago
He's taking full credit for a relatively minor part of the overall project, and setting the record straight.