5 ms·

Yes, Google staffs its Go team, but the original comment invokes Google's vast wealth as though its entire market cap is available for the development of Go, wh

Yes, Google staffs its Go team, but the original comment invokes Google's vast wealth as though its entire market cap is available for the development of Go, which is of course absurd. Google probably spends single-digit millions of dollars on Go annually, and it seems they've determined that supporting Drew's use case would require a nontrivial share of that budget which they feel could be spent to greater effect elsewhere. Go is not only a "side project" at Google, but one of its most trivial side projects.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Knowing that "we only have a few million in funding per year" was a valid excuse for generating abusive traffic and refusing to do anything about it, would definitely have changed a few conversations I've had working at startups. Interesting.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  Of course, Google doesn't materially benefit from optimizing the module proxy for Drew's use case, and I doubt your startups would have made traffic optimization its top priority either under similar circumstances (which is to say "no ROI from traffic optimization").
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Drew's use case?!
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      "scenario"? Pick your synonym.
monocasa 4y ago
They wouldn't write significant parts of their backend in a side project.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  Not to mention, it's likely a quite impactful form of marketing / developer relations gain for them. I think so because when I talk to people who start to learn Go, I usually see a transfer of positive feelings and excitement from Go itself to Google as its creator/backer - one of the clearest examples of "halo effect" I've seen first-hand.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    Do you really imagine some significant number of Google's search, cloud, etc customers were driven to Google over a competitor because of "good vibes" derived from Go? Google only develops Go because it's a useful internal tool, and I'm pretty sure the marketing team nor the executives spend any meeting minutes discussing Go.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      Marketing works in mysterious ways. Yes, I do imagine that people who are really into Go are more likely than average to join or start Go shops, and then pick GCP over competitors because they have to start with something, and being Go people, Google stuff comes first to mind. Lots of companies across lots of industries spend a lot of money to achieve more-less this fuzzy, delayed-action effect.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        > Yes, I do imagine that people who are really into Go are more likely than average to join or start Go shops, and then pick GCP over competitors because they have to start with something, and being Go people, Google stuff comes first to mind. How many such people do you imagine there are? I'm active in the Go community, and I've been a cloud developer for the better part of a decade. It's never occurred to me to pick GCP over AWS because Google develops Go, nor have I ever heard anyone else espouse this temptation. I certainly can't imagine there are so many people out there for whom this is true that it recoups the cost that Google incurs developing Go. Rather, I'm nearly certain that Google's value proposition RE Go is that developing and operating Go applications is marginally lower cost than for other languages, but that at Google's scale that "marginally lower cost" still dwarfs the cost of Google's sponsorship of the Go language.

yamtaddle 4y ago

Knowing that "we only have a few million in funding per year" was a valid excuse for generating abusive traffic and refusing to do anything about it, would definitely have changed a few conversations I've had working at startups. Interesting.

throwaway894345 4y ago
Of course, Google doesn't materially benefit from optimizing the module proxy for Drew's use case, and I doubt your startups would have made traffic optimization its top priority either under similar circumstances (which is to say "no ROI from traffic optimization").
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Drew's use case?!
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    "scenario"? Pick your synonym.

monocasa 4y ago

They wouldn't write significant parts of their backend in a side project.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
Not to mention, it's likely a quite impactful form of marketing / developer relations gain for them. I think so because when I talk to people who start to learn Go, I usually see a transfer of positive feelings and excitement from Go itself to Google as its creator/backer - one of the clearest examples of "halo effect" I've seen first-hand.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  Do you really imagine some significant number of Google's search, cloud, etc customers were driven to Google over a competitor because of "good vibes" derived from Go? Google only develops Go because it's a useful internal tool, and I'm pretty sure the marketing team nor the executives spend any meeting minutes discussing Go.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Marketing works in mysterious ways. Yes, I do imagine that people who are really into Go are more likely than average to join or start Go shops, and then pick GCP over competitors because they have to start with something, and being Go people, Google stuff comes first to mind. Lots of companies across lots of industries spend a lot of money to achieve more-less this fuzzy, delayed-action effect.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      > Yes, I do imagine that people who are really into Go are more likely than average to join or start Go shops, and then pick GCP over competitors because they have to start with something, and being Go people, Google stuff comes first to mind. How many such people do you imagine there are? I'm active in the Go community, and I've been a cloud developer for the better part of a decade. It's never occurred to me to pick GCP over AWS because Google develops Go, nor have I ever heard anyone else espouse this temptation. I certainly can't imagine there are so many people out there for whom this is true that it recoups the cost that Google incurs developing Go. Rather, I'm nearly certain that Google's value proposition RE Go is that developing and operating Go applications is marginally lower cost than for other languages, but that at Google's scale that "marginally lower cost" still dwarfs the cost of Google's sponsorship of the Go language.