5 ms·

Google is too big, working on too many projects which are released too often for the tools and processes to keep pace. They additionally have high turnover. Un

by blub 4y ago

Google is too big, working on too many projects which are released too often for the tools and processes to keep pace. They additionally have high turnover. Under these circumstances, using C++ over decades has the results that can be seen - they can’t produce secure software. I don’t think that Google or any other company can create secure products. I was actually surprised how many Java bugs were present in the December list. The market, the incentives are not set up for that. Sure, using safe languages would help in a narrow sense, why not give it a try, but this is turning into scapegoating and silver bullet activism. Once they get rid of the most C and C++ code I bet their products will still be insecure, because the culture, the processes, the market and the people won’t have changed.

pjmlp 4y ago
Ah, the typical when we get rid of the 70% memory corruption bugs, we still have to deal with the remaining 30%, so why bother.
- blub 4y ago
  By all means, bother with that and implement it. Then publish a proper study, so others could learn from it.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    I guess I have been bothering with it since 2005, in which I have been part of teams that replaced C and C++ systems with managed languages (compiled), leaving them to essential code paths when unavoidable to do otherwise. As Morris worm has proven, it isn't a good idea to have such languages process directly data from the network in distributed systems.
    - blub 4y ago
      I thought you switched to managed because there were not enough low-level jobs available…
72deluxe 4y ago
I would go further and say that Google's end software is pretty poor. Their Drive syncing software doesn't give indication on current progress and in Google Drive itself try to get the size of a directory and its contents - it's impossible. Worse usability than Windows 3.11 File Manager. The Android Studio software doesn't work with keyboard shortcuts in Windows (the focus gets lost somewhere so Alt-F never works); every update mentions some improvements on speed or introduces features that Visual Studio has had for decades; the update dialog shows a miniscule blob as a "notification" in spite of all the fanfare of usability they push. The guidelines for Android interfaces uses all their old guidelines as how not to do something. Their Lighthouse page checker fails if you run it on itself. Their documentation for AdWords API/SDKS is jumbled. The user interfaces on AdWords is horrendous. YouTube on the web loads slowly on the homepage and takes at least 3 seconds to be usable despite them penalising your website for doing the same. Their old desktop search software (anyone remember that?) was very poor. They change the way adverts are shown (the conditions under which they are shown) based apparently on the phase of the Moon and the world suddenly jumps to play their game to get adverts shown for what they want, eg. they show adverts for "traffic cone" even if the person searched for "ice cream cone" and you chose this to be an EXACT MATCH - some new definition of "exact" nobody else uses... Then it's not obvious how to integrate their software into your website that armies of people produce blogs and videos to demonstrate how to do it, which is a terrible indictment of Google's software usability. They exist solely for extracting money from their users AND customers, with nobody to talk to unless you spend exorbitant sums of money. They simply don't follow their own advice and I don't think the tech world should be fawning over their proclamations half as much as they do. I am not surprised that they don't follow their own advice on C++ despite being on committee members - they don't follow their own bombastic statements on ANYTHING. Like Larry Page appearing at the Android IO conference to much applause to berate Facebook for not federating XMPP and then the same day they turn off GChat access over XMPP themselves. They simply are not trustworthy against their own advice. I wouldn't trust them to continue any software they write as they have a track record of chucking stuff in the bin after the initial announcement has faded. But they do make a lot of money advertising to you and stalking you around the web.
- kaba0 4y ago
  > I would go further and say that Google's end software is pretty poor. Sure, as is the vast vast majority software. I honestly fail to think of a GUI app I have ever used that never had any glitches during regular use.

by blub 4y ago

pjmlp 4y ago

Ah, the typical when we get rid of the 70% memory corruption bugs, we still have to deal with the remaining 30%, so why bother.

blub 4y ago
By all means, bother with that and implement it. Then publish a proper study, so others could learn from it.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  I guess I have been bothering with it since 2005, in which I have been part of teams that replaced C and C++ systems with managed languages (compiled), leaving them to essential code paths when unavoidable to do otherwise. As Morris worm has proven, it isn't a good idea to have such languages process directly data from the network in distributed systems.
  - blub 4y ago
    I thought you switched to managed because there were not enough low-level jobs available…

72deluxe 4y ago

I would go further and say that Google's end software is pretty poor. Their Drive syncing software doesn't give indication on current progress and in Google Drive itself try to get the size of a directory and its contents - it's impossible. Worse usability than Windows 3.11 File Manager. The Android Studio software doesn't work with keyboard shortcuts in Windows (the focus gets lost somewhere so Alt-F never works); every update mentions some improvements on speed or introduces features that Visual Studio has had for decades; the update dialog shows a miniscule blob as a "notification" in spite of all the fanfare of usability they push. The guidelines for Android interfaces uses all their old guidelines as how not to do something. Their Lighthouse page checker fails if you run it on itself. Their documentation for AdWords API/SDKS is jumbled. The user interfaces on AdWords is horrendous. YouTube on the web loads slowly on the homepage and takes at least 3 seconds to be usable despite them penalising your website for doing the same. Their old desktop search software (anyone remember that?) was very poor. They change the way adverts are shown (the conditions under which they are shown) based apparently on the phase of the Moon and the world suddenly jumps to play their game to get adverts shown for what they want, eg. they show adverts for "traffic cone" even if the person searched for "ice cream cone" and you chose this to be an EXACT MATCH - some new definition of "exact" nobody else uses... Then it's not obvious how to integrate their software into your website that armies of people produce blogs and videos to demonstrate how to do it, which is a terrible indictment of Google's software usability. They exist solely for extracting money from their users AND customers, with nobody to talk to unless you spend exorbitant sums of money. They simply don't follow their own advice and I don't think the tech world should be fawning over their proclamations half as much as they do. I am not surprised that they don't follow their own advice on C++ despite being on committee members - they don't follow their own bombastic statements on ANYTHING. Like Larry Page appearing at the Android IO conference to much applause to berate Facebook for not federating XMPP and then the same day they turn off GChat access over XMPP themselves. They simply are not trustworthy against their own advice. I wouldn't trust them to continue any software they write as they have a track record of chucking stuff in the bin after the initial announcement has faded. But they do make a lot of money advertising to you and stalking you around the web.

kaba0 4y ago
> I would go further and say that Google's end software is pretty poor. Sure, as is the vast vast majority software. I honestly fail to think of a GUI app I have ever used that never had any glitches during regular use.