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AtariAge.com[1] - first created in 1988, or 25 years ago. Run by some bloke on the internet. The problem for Google Groups is that no-one can perf-farm it any

AtariAge.com[1] - first created in 1988, or 25 years ago. Run by some bloke on the internet. The problem for Google Groups is that no-one can perf-farm it any more, which is the sole reason for projects to survive at Google... 1: https://atariage.com/about.php https://atariage.com/about.php

pdxandi 4y ago
Just a note that 1988 was, gulp, 35 years ago.
- zikduruqe 4y ago
  Just a note, Star Wars was released closer to World War 2, than today's date. Makes you feel really old.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    1977-1945=32 2023-1977=46 2023-32=1991 Quite a bit closer! That’s an interesting note, given that the Tie/X-wing fights were heavily inspired by WW2 dogfights, right? Can you imagine something that draws on the Gulf War similarly? It just seems wrong, too proximate to pull out purely aesthetic themes.
    - coliveira 4y ago
      WW2 had an immense importance in the minds of people who lived it. Gulf War... who even cares about it, except for the ones involved? Many people don't even remember that.
      - johannes1234321 4y ago
        Which of the gulfwars are you even talking about? - Even Korea and Vietnam, which were big and had quite some cultural impact, are more and more forgotten.
        jefftk 4y ago
        If someone just says "The Gulf War" they almost always mean the 1990-1991 invasion of Iraq ("Desert Storm"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
        antod 4y ago
        Although during the 80s and until Desert Storm, the same term was applied to the Iran/Iraq war - which is another mostly forgotten thing despite the huge human cost. (I realised after I typed the above that the wikipedia disambiguation page also links to the Iran/Iraq war anyway)
  - onetokeoverthe 4y ago
    [dead]
brabel 4y ago
> first created in 1988, or 25 years ago 1988 was 35 years ago. I know, hard to believe... want to know something even more shocking?? People who are today 18 years old were born in 2005!
- mybhslaptop 4y ago
  It's hard for even me to believe that I'll be turning 18 in a few months. All the responsibilities...
  - logifail 4y ago
    > I'll be turning 18 in a few months. All the responsibilities [..] <chuckle> (sorry!) ... but, like most soon-to-be-18-year-olds, you have no idea![0] 18 is nothing, but do try and enjoy it while you can :) [0] just like me, way back when...
  - maxwell 4y ago
    I remember the feeling, back in 2005...
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Responsibilities are relative. I very much enjoyed that -barring lack of money- I could just pick up and go anywhere any time I wanted.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- spacedcowboy 4y ago
  Yeah, typo. I meant to put 1998 - which is 25 years ago :)
  - labster 4y ago
    I’m pretty sure 1998 is only 15 years ago. I asked Bing and it agrees with me.
- 4y ago
cbzbc 4y ago
perf-farm ? I think I might know what you mean, but could you unpack?
- notacoward 4y ago
  Not the person who used the term, but I kind of wish I had been. It's excellent. At FAANG-ish companies where "impact" is the key to promotion, there's an inevitable tendency for engineers to prefer working on things that are highly visible like starting new projects or adding new features, vs. things that are highly useful like stability, testing, or code quality. Most internally promoted E6s or above got that way by initiating multiple projects, then dumping them on others when they've served their perf-review-enhancing purpose. "Perf farming" is as good a term as I've seen for it.
  - vl 4y ago
    > Most internally promoted E6s or above got that way by initiating multiple projects, then dumping them on others Well, Jeff and Sanjay got to DE/Fellows this way, so this is a good role model. Unfortunately doesn’t scale.
    - westurner 4y ago
      When you get promoted, they tend to move you to different projects (that need different resources at founding time than the operations folks that have experience scaling up)
- scrlk 4y ago
  I assume it's gaming the Google performance review system in order for promotion. That's why you see new Google products/features launched, then left to wither in the sun - ongoing maintenance/support doesn't do anything for your career.
gandalfian 4y ago
Ahem, typo? Site says it was created in 1998. Which coincidentally was 25 years ago...
- spacedcowboy 4y ago
  Yep, typo. At least I got the date-range correct :)
eklitzke 4y ago
I don't think it is necessarily a "problem" that it can't be perf-farmed anymore though. Google groups isn't perfect but it does a lot of things well (the bugs mentioned in TFA not withstanding), is used extensively internally at Google, and doesn't necessarily need a lot of new features. There are a ton of internal products at Google that are also staffed by one or two people in maintenance mode and it's not a problem. As an example, I recently checked the internal symbolization service at Google (that handles symbolization for C++ executables, which is in turn used for generating performance profiles and symbolizing things like stack traces generated by core dumps) and the team maintaining it was two people. And those people aren't solely maintaining the symbolization service, they're compiler engineers who spend most of their time working on other projects and spend a small amount of their time maintaining the symbolization service as issues come up or bugs are reported. But this isn't a problem. The symbolization service works and is basically feature complete. There's no reason to have a team of ten people actively working on it.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  > the team maintaining it was two people. [...] But this isn't a problem. The symbolization service works and is basically feature complete. As long as it works, it is no problem. But given any larger change somewhere in the stack and management not being aware that these two folks have that side project, maybe they even left, and there will be problems. Either a project has dedicated staff or it doesn't exist and just survives. I don't know how critical groups internally are, but I assume with the general decline of e-mail compared to chat, video calls, etc. (insert joke about googles chat tools if you like ...) I would assume that this will be home less of relevance. Over time as well and drop more and more off.
- nr2x 4y ago
  “Not a problem”…until they get laid off. Which has happened to many internal maintainers.
nr2x 4y ago
Correct, and a good chunk of layoffs were people who never got promoted because they were tending the garden. So it’s actually worse than that, anybody who tried to maintain something is marked for deletion by Ruth’s fire-a-tron

pdxandi 4y ago

Just a note that 1988 was, gulp, 35 years ago.

zikduruqe 4y ago
Just a note, Star Wars was released closer to World War 2, than today's date. Makes you feel really old.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  1977-1945=32 2023-1977=46 2023-32=1991 Quite a bit closer! That’s an interesting note, given that the Tie/X-wing fights were heavily inspired by WW2 dogfights, right? Can you imagine something that draws on the Gulf War similarly? It just seems wrong, too proximate to pull out purely aesthetic themes.
  - coliveira 4y ago
    WW2 had an immense importance in the minds of people who lived it. Gulf War... who even cares about it, except for the ones involved? Many people don't even remember that.
    - johannes1234321 4y ago
      Which of the gulfwars are you even talking about? - Even Korea and Vietnam, which were big and had quite some cultural impact, are more and more forgotten.
      - jefftk 4y ago
        If someone just says "The Gulf War" they almost always mean the 1990-1991 invasion of Iraq ("Desert Storm"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
        antod 4y ago
        Although during the 80s and until Desert Storm, the same term was applied to the Iran/Iraq war - which is another mostly forgotten thing despite the huge human cost. (I realised after I typed the above that the wikipedia disambiguation page also links to the Iran/Iraq war anyway)
- onetokeoverthe 4y ago
  [dead]

brabel 4y ago

> first created in 1988, or 25 years ago 1988 was 35 years ago. I know, hard to believe... want to know something even more shocking?? People who are today 18 years old were born in 2005!

mybhslaptop 4y ago
It's hard for even me to believe that I'll be turning 18 in a few months. All the responsibilities...
- logifail 4y ago
  > I'll be turning 18 in a few months. All the responsibilities [..] <chuckle> (sorry!) ... but, like most soon-to-be-18-year-olds, you have no idea![0] 18 is nothing, but do try and enjoy it while you can :) [0] just like me, way back when...
- maxwell 4y ago
  I remember the feeling, back in 2005...
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Responsibilities are relative. I very much enjoyed that -barring lack of money- I could just pick up and go anywhere any time I wanted.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
spacedcowboy 4y ago
Yeah, typo. I meant to put 1998 - which is 25 years ago :)
- labster 4y ago
  I’m pretty sure 1998 is only 15 years ago. I asked Bing and it agrees with me.
4y ago

cbzbc 4y ago

perf-farm ? I think I might know what you mean, but could you unpack?

notacoward 4y ago
Not the person who used the term, but I kind of wish I had been. It's excellent. At FAANG-ish companies where "impact" is the key to promotion, there's an inevitable tendency for engineers to prefer working on things that are highly visible like starting new projects or adding new features, vs. things that are highly useful like stability, testing, or code quality. Most internally promoted E6s or above got that way by initiating multiple projects, then dumping them on others when they've served their perf-review-enhancing purpose. "Perf farming" is as good a term as I've seen for it.
- vl 4y ago
  > Most internally promoted E6s or above got that way by initiating multiple projects, then dumping them on others Well, Jeff and Sanjay got to DE/Fellows this way, so this is a good role model. Unfortunately doesn’t scale.
  - westurner 4y ago
    When you get promoted, they tend to move you to different projects (that need different resources at founding time than the operations folks that have experience scaling up)
scrlk 4y ago
I assume it's gaming the Google performance review system in order for promotion. That's why you see new Google products/features launched, then left to wither in the sun - ongoing maintenance/support doesn't do anything for your career.

gandalfian 4y ago

Ahem, typo? Site says it was created in 1998. Which coincidentally was 25 years ago...

spacedcowboy 4y ago
Yep, typo. At least I got the date-range correct :)

eklitzke 4y ago

I don't think it is necessarily a "problem" that it can't be perf-farmed anymore though. Google groups isn't perfect but it does a lot of things well (the bugs mentioned in TFA not withstanding), is used extensively internally at Google, and doesn't necessarily need a lot of new features. There are a ton of internal products at Google that are also staffed by one or two people in maintenance mode and it's not a problem. As an example, I recently checked the internal symbolization service at Google (that handles symbolization for C++ executables, which is in turn used for generating performance profiles and symbolizing things like stack traces generated by core dumps) and the team maintaining it was two people. And those people aren't solely maintaining the symbolization service, they're compiler engineers who spend most of their time working on other projects and spend a small amount of their time maintaining the symbolization service as issues come up or bugs are reported. But this isn't a problem. The symbolization service works and is basically feature complete. There's no reason to have a team of ten people actively working on it.

johannes1234321 4y ago
> the team maintaining it was two people. [...] But this isn't a problem. The symbolization service works and is basically feature complete. As long as it works, it is no problem. But given any larger change somewhere in the stack and management not being aware that these two folks have that side project, maybe they even left, and there will be problems. Either a project has dedicated staff or it doesn't exist and just survives. I don't know how critical groups internally are, but I assume with the general decline of e-mail compared to chat, video calls, etc. (insert joke about googles chat tools if you like ...) I would assume that this will be home less of relevance. Over time as well and drop more and more off.
nr2x 4y ago
“Not a problem”…until they get laid off. Which has happened to many internal maintainers.

nr2x 4y ago

Correct, and a good chunk of layoffs were people who never got promoted because they were tending the garden. So it’s actually worse than that, anybody who tried to maintain something is marked for deletion by Ruth’s fire-a-tron