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Has someone collected all these self-aggrandizing posts that spew from ex-Googlers and current Googlers? It feels like a pre-requisite for their promotion packe

Has someone collected all these self-aggrandizing posts that spew from ex-Googlers and current Googlers? It feels like a pre-requisite for their promotion packets. These all sound about the same and are altogether unhelpful. Note the copious links to terms and inlined quotes rather than an actual study, or any evidence at all...just vague rewording of colloquial expressions commonly traded around. The only use seems to be something like giving middle-management a virtual class on how to pretend software development is a science. We are decades past describing the philosophy behind the feeling we have when Google has plenty of data to leverage. Show me that and I'll feel like I'm not wading through verbal vomit. It may seem harsh, but the industry should stop elevating this kind of pablum.

gxs 4y ago
>>> just vague rewording of colloquial expressions commonly traded around As I read through the article, I couldn’t figure out if it was me “hating” on the author or if it really read like a 99 cent store hallmark card. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who thought the latter.
xmprt 4y ago
On the contrary, I think this post is exactly what it describes - 10 years at Google. Whether you take that as a good or bad thing is up to you and it seems like you'd probably not enjoy working at Google.
Retric 4y ago
Look, yes this is another post that seems to be written by an idiot but that’s presumably because their simply a bad at this type of communication. Writing for a mass audience is just really difficult to do well and this is just one of the common failure modes for technical people. Even if you can’t find value in what was written just take it as a lesson in what not to do.
- sgammon 4y ago
  > because their simply a bad at this you wrote this. about someone else's writing
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 4y ago
    Recognizing something is difficult doesn’t mean you are good at it.
    - sgammon 4y ago
      wow what a great way to say you aren't qualified to talk about this
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - Retric 4y ago
        You don’t need to be an expert to judge when someone falls flat on their face. So no, I don’t have great advice for the author, but failure on that magnitude is obvious.
magicalist 4y ago
It's somebody's blog post that's passing by and will be gone tomorrow. I don't think we have to worry about it being overly "elevated". On the other hand we have a bunch of people spending too much time on hacker news, often with all the insight of someone who spent 5 minutes scanning a wikipedia article. I'd worry a lot more about the long term effects of elevating this self congratulatory content, but where's this content cop then? > It may seem harsh Honestly it seems like it's trying too hard. Call it feel good vagueries and move on.
- prox 4y ago
  Blog is already inaccessible at this moment.
  - brakmic 4y ago
    Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20220519020040/https://addyosmani.com/blog/software-eng-10-years/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220519020040/https://addyosman...
  - Brajeshwar 4y ago
    I don't know what this post is about (it is still down). Looks like an issue with GitPage. I had few not-so-important static websites hosted on GitHub Pages but gave up with such similar downtime. It was pretty noticeable even for my lame websites including my own personal website. Anyways, Addy Osmani did contribute or did talked a lot about Frontend engineering development, especially wrt to Google Chrome. Whenever I think of Lighthouse, or try to debug or get my team to debug with Google Inspector, I remember him. I have read a lot of his articles, public tweets (I think) where I have exclaimed "oh! That's how", "ah! that is cool."
  - rurban 4y ago
    Looks like he is looking for a job at Amazon. All the right buzzwords
- azangru 4y ago
  > somebody's Addy is pretty well known in the frontend community. He's published a bunch of books, has hosted the Totally tooling tips podcast, gave a bunch of talks on performance, and has appeared in popular frontend publications, such as the Smashing Magazine.
bloodyplonker22 4y ago
To be honest, whenever I see or hear the word "insights" now, I become very skeptical. It stems from when someone goes on stage at a TED talk (or something similar, perhaps even a 'tech talk') and spews a bunch of already well known high level nonsense that is not useful at all in our daily lives and work. Then, when it's Q&A time, a sycophant in the audience will predictably begin a question with: "thanks for your insights".
Animats 4y ago
It's not that what he says is bad. It's that it reads like it was censored by Google's PR department, or self-censored to avoid trouble. There's nothing on "what to do when your project is cancelled", or "what to do when what you're doing is becoming incompatible with what someone else on the project is doing", or "when is there too much technical debt to continue". Those are things one might learn in a decade at Google, but can't talk about in public.
- joshuamorton 4y ago
  I mean, you might learn these, but also you might not. Some people just have generally good experiences (and in fact you'd sort of expect someone who has stayed at the company for a decade to be in that bucket). Signed, another googler who couldn't answer any of those questions despite half a decade.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  I’ve been at google for a decade. Zero of my projects have been cancelled. I’ve never had my work be incompatible with the work of others. Google publicly cancels a lot of products. It has a pretty bad long term product strategy. But part of that is because it has like 100000 engineers. Most people aren’t experiencing political problems.
  - dentemple 4y ago
    Then, if Googlers don't have experience in solving the problems that other engineers may face, then what useful insights would even be available there? Dealing with political problems, technical debt, and changing product requirements are all core parts of navigating the software industry.
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      Political problems, technical debt, and changing product requirements are not the same thing as what was mentioned above.
belter 4y ago
Software Engineers are not Engineers they are Professional Musicians. They need their Algorithms and Data Structures knowledge, the same way a Jazz musician needs the circle of fifths and a deep understanding of Harmony, to do sophisticated improvisation over a Jazz standard. If you need to go on tour with your rock band you don't go to a Music conservatory and start interviewing musicians based on their knowledge of scales. You give them a Guitar, or Drums or Bass and you ask them to play something. You will know right away if they are the Guitar player or Drummer you are looking for. That is why Software Engineering hiring is still broken, and why companies need to keep buying other companies to acquire successful software products. And that is why nobody cracked yet the challenge of successful software development. Some of the best Software Developers are self-taught, and that include in this category, the ones with a different type of degree, that moved into Software Development. You don't go to a school and come out an Eric Clapton or a Jimi Hendrix. You either have it or not. It's the same for Software Engineers and Software Development. No amount of schooling will help you if "don't have it" and no lack of schooling will stop you from developing something and share it with the world.
- jmpz 4y ago
  I can't agree with any of these perspectives, or the analogy to being a musician. Also, I find it to contradicts itself. Initially, you say: you need the core knowledge of algorithms and data structures (like the circle of fifths and harmony) to do sophisticated improvisation.. so you're advocating for the importance of having a strong technical background. OK, fair. But I don't get your analogy to a rock band going on tour, and they either have it or they don't? What is the software analogy to going on tour? Is this working in a startup, when you just need results rather than finesse? How does this tie back to your initial point about jazz musicians needing a core base of knowledge? You also bring up the myth of the self-taught, scrappy musician (or programmer) who, against all odds,'has it' and is able to exceed the abilities of others who are the hardest-working and most studious. I find this concept pretty toxic. The Eric Claptons and the Jimi Hendrixs of the world are a rarity, a complete exception. Although often cited because they are incredibly visible, compared to the hundreds of thousand if not millions of others who either developed skills and capabilities through education and/or self-taught effort. Often without 'having it'. I think it can be pretty discouraging when everyone holds themselves up to ideal of Claptons and Hendrixs.. rather than considering there might be multiple, varied and nuanced paths to being an excellent engineer, or musician.
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
I could never rationalise technological evangelism outside of a self serving purpose. but maybe that says more about me.

gxs 4y ago

>>> just vague rewording of colloquial expressions commonly traded around As I read through the article, I couldn’t figure out if it was me “hating” on the author or if it really read like a 99 cent store hallmark card. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who thought the latter.

xmprt 4y ago

On the contrary, I think this post is exactly what it describes - 10 years at Google. Whether you take that as a good or bad thing is up to you and it seems like you'd probably not enjoy working at Google.

Retric 4y ago

Look, yes this is another post that seems to be written by an idiot but that’s presumably because their simply a bad at this type of communication. Writing for a mass audience is just really difficult to do well and this is just one of the common failure modes for technical people. Even if you can’t find value in what was written just take it as a lesson in what not to do.

sgammon 4y ago
> because their simply a bad at this you wrote this. about someone else's writing
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 4y ago
  Recognizing something is difficult doesn’t mean you are good at it.
  - sgammon 4y ago
    wow what a great way to say you aren't qualified to talk about this
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retric 4y ago
      You don’t need to be an expert to judge when someone falls flat on their face. So no, I don’t have great advice for the author, but failure on that magnitude is obvious.

magicalist 4y ago

It's somebody's blog post that's passing by and will be gone tomorrow. I don't think we have to worry about it being overly "elevated". On the other hand we have a bunch of people spending too much time on hacker news, often with all the insight of someone who spent 5 minutes scanning a wikipedia article. I'd worry a lot more about the long term effects of elevating this self congratulatory content, but where's this content cop then? > It may seem harsh Honestly it seems like it's trying too hard. Call it feel good vagueries and move on.

prox 4y ago
Blog is already inaccessible at this moment.
- brakmic 4y ago
  Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20220519020040/https://addyosmani.com/blog/software-eng-10-years/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220519020040/https://addyosman...
- Brajeshwar 4y ago
  I don't know what this post is about (it is still down). Looks like an issue with GitPage. I had few not-so-important static websites hosted on GitHub Pages but gave up with such similar downtime. It was pretty noticeable even for my lame websites including my own personal website. Anyways, Addy Osmani did contribute or did talked a lot about Frontend engineering development, especially wrt to Google Chrome. Whenever I think of Lighthouse, or try to debug or get my team to debug with Google Inspector, I remember him. I have read a lot of his articles, public tweets (I think) where I have exclaimed "oh! That's how", "ah! that is cool."
- rurban 4y ago
  Looks like he is looking for a job at Amazon. All the right buzzwords
azangru 4y ago
> somebody's Addy is pretty well known in the frontend community. He's published a bunch of books, has hosted the Totally tooling tips podcast, gave a bunch of talks on performance, and has appeared in popular frontend publications, such as the Smashing Magazine.

bloodyplonker22 4y ago

To be honest, whenever I see or hear the word "insights" now, I become very skeptical. It stems from when someone goes on stage at a TED talk (or something similar, perhaps even a 'tech talk') and spews a bunch of already well known high level nonsense that is not useful at all in our daily lives and work. Then, when it's Q&A time, a sycophant in the audience will predictably begin a question with: "thanks for your insights".

Animats 4y ago

It's not that what he says is bad. It's that it reads like it was censored by Google's PR department, or self-censored to avoid trouble. There's nothing on "what to do when your project is cancelled", or "what to do when what you're doing is becoming incompatible with what someone else on the project is doing", or "when is there too much technical debt to continue". Those are things one might learn in a decade at Google, but can't talk about in public.

joshuamorton 4y ago
I mean, you might learn these, but also you might not. Some people just have generally good experiences (and in fact you'd sort of expect someone who has stayed at the company for a decade to be in that bucket). Signed, another googler who couldn't answer any of those questions despite half a decade.
UncleMeat 4y ago
I’ve been at google for a decade. Zero of my projects have been cancelled. I’ve never had my work be incompatible with the work of others. Google publicly cancels a lot of products. It has a pretty bad long term product strategy. But part of that is because it has like 100000 engineers. Most people aren’t experiencing political problems.
- dentemple 4y ago
  Then, if Googlers don't have experience in solving the problems that other engineers may face, then what useful insights would even be available there? Dealing with political problems, technical debt, and changing product requirements are all core parts of navigating the software industry.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    Political problems, technical debt, and changing product requirements are not the same thing as what was mentioned above.

belter 4y ago

Software Engineers are not Engineers they are Professional Musicians. They need their Algorithms and Data Structures knowledge, the same way a Jazz musician needs the circle of fifths and a deep understanding of Harmony, to do sophisticated improvisation over a Jazz standard. If you need to go on tour with your rock band you don't go to a Music conservatory and start interviewing musicians based on their knowledge of scales. You give them a Guitar, or Drums or Bass and you ask them to play something. You will know right away if they are the Guitar player or Drummer you are looking for. That is why Software Engineering hiring is still broken, and why companies need to keep buying other companies to acquire successful software products. And that is why nobody cracked yet the challenge of successful software development. Some of the best Software Developers are self-taught, and that include in this category, the ones with a different type of degree, that moved into Software Development. You don't go to a school and come out an Eric Clapton or a Jimi Hendrix. You either have it or not. It's the same for Software Engineers and Software Development. No amount of schooling will help you if "don't have it" and no lack of schooling will stop you from developing something and share it with the world.

jmpz 4y ago
I can't agree with any of these perspectives, or the analogy to being a musician. Also, I find it to contradicts itself. Initially, you say: you need the core knowledge of algorithms and data structures (like the circle of fifths and harmony) to do sophisticated improvisation.. so you're advocating for the importance of having a strong technical background. OK, fair. But I don't get your analogy to a rock band going on tour, and they either have it or they don't? What is the software analogy to going on tour? Is this working in a startup, when you just need results rather than finesse? How does this tie back to your initial point about jazz musicians needing a core base of knowledge? You also bring up the myth of the self-taught, scrappy musician (or programmer) who, against all odds,'has it' and is able to exceed the abilities of others who are the hardest-working and most studious. I find this concept pretty toxic. The Eric Claptons and the Jimi Hendrixs of the world are a rarity, a complete exception. Although often cited because they are incredibly visible, compared to the hundreds of thousand if not millions of others who either developed skills and capabilities through education and/or self-taught effort. Often without 'having it'. I think it can be pretty discouraging when everyone holds themselves up to ideal of Claptons and Hendrixs.. rather than considering there might be multiple, varied and nuanced paths to being an excellent engineer, or musician.

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

I could never rationalise technological evangelism outside of a self serving purpose. but maybe that says more about me.