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All of this would have been easy to find out simply by asking I'm not a journalist, but in an ideal scenario, how would somebody have known that you were one o

All of this would have been easy to find out simply by asking I'm not a journalist, but in an ideal scenario, how would somebody have known that you were one of the key members of the project? It's not like Google (or anybody else) makes this easy to know. And call me jaded, but something tells me official Google PR channels would not have been really helpful for this. And also - are most engineers in your sort of position even free to remark on such projects w.r.t. NDAs, etc?

SoftTalker 2y ago
The way it used to work is that tech journalists (or sports journalists, or any other type) had contacts in the industry. If those people were not directly involved, they probably could at least suggest someone else who might know. Leads were followed up, and eventually the writer got the story. I'm not sure how it works now, cynically I would suggest that the writer asks an LLM to write the story, gets a rehash of Wikipedia and other sources, and they maybe makes some attempts at firsthand verification.
- krisoft 2y ago
  That is neat, but Scott Chacon is not a journalist, does not act like a journalist and what you are reading is not tech journalism. You are reading the personal diary of someone with personal connection to a topic and complaining that it is not up to the standards of professional journalism.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    I'm complaining about nothing, here.
- JohnBooty 2y ago
  The linked article doesn't claim to have insight into the inner workings of the Google Code team, or what Google's leadership hoped to accomplish with that product. Rather, he is comparing the actual released products. Specifically, he says that competitors to Github had no "taste", which he seems to be using as shorthand for "making a polished product and really focusing on developer/user experience." You don't need to interview the folks who worked on Google Code to make that claim, any more than I need to interview Steven Spielberg before I comment on one of his movies. (Based on my memories of Google Code, I'd say the linked article's observations about Google Code are also absolutely correct, although that's really beside the point)
DannyBee 2y ago
"I'm not a journalist, but in an ideal scenario, how would somebody have known that you were one of the key members of the project?" It's not about asking me, it's about not asserting things you don't know. Instead of saying "people did x for y reason" when you have literally no data on x or y, you could say "I don't know why x happened, i only know about z". Or if it's super important you try to put something there, beforehand, you could say "hey does anyone know why x happened? I'm working on a blog post and want to get it right". Then, someone like me who saw it could happily email you or whatever and say "hey, here's the real story on x". Or not, in which case you can leave it at "i don't know". The right answer is not to just assert random things you make up in your head and force people to correct you. I'm aware of the old adage of basically "just put wrong stuff out there and someone will correct you", but i generally think that's super poor form when it's about *other people or things and their motivations". I care less when it's about "why is the sky blue". In this case, it also happens that there are plenty of on-record interviews and other things where what i said, was said back in the day. So a little spleunking would have told them the answer anyway.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  To be a bit more generous: I think from Scott Chacon's point of view, "They had no taste and we beat them in the market" is a fair way to hold the elephant. Lacking the Google-internal perspective, it's a reasonable conclusion from the signal he has. I don't get the sense from this post that he's trying to publish a doctoral thesis on the historical situation in the industry; he's providing some primary-source testimony from his point of view.
  - DannyBee 2y ago
    I guess i'm going to disagree with you. He's not just providing primary source testimony from his point of view, he's trying to pretend he has primary source testmony on what others were doing as well. If he left out the parts where he has no data (or said i don't know), it would have IMHO been a better post, and actually primary source testimony. You also don't run into the Gell-Mann amnesia problem this way. To each their own, of course.
- 2y ago
dlisboa 2y ago
Maybe a cofounder of GitHub has the reach and network to ask for the e-mail of someone who worked on the Google Code team. A journalist might not, that's true. Just flat out saying they had no taste in product development, however, is a bit of trash talking for no reason.
mattnewton 2y ago
Journalists are supposed to investigate not speculate because finding an email is too hard
jaredklewis 2y ago
Well, finding, vetting, and getting comments from sources is like half of journalism. If you can't or won't do that, whatever you are doing is probably not journalism. It's just an editorial, think-piece, or whatever.
fredgrott 2y ago
[flagged]

SoftTalker 2y ago

The way it used to work is that tech journalists (or sports journalists, or any other type) had contacts in the industry. If those people were not directly involved, they probably could at least suggest someone else who might know. Leads were followed up, and eventually the writer got the story. I'm not sure how it works now, cynically I would suggest that the writer asks an LLM to write the story, gets a rehash of Wikipedia and other sources, and they maybe makes some attempts at firsthand verification.

krisoft 2y ago
That is neat, but Scott Chacon is not a journalist, does not act like a journalist and what you are reading is not tech journalism. You are reading the personal diary of someone with personal connection to a topic and complaining that it is not up to the standards of professional journalism.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  I'm complaining about nothing, here.
JohnBooty 2y ago
The linked article doesn't claim to have insight into the inner workings of the Google Code team, or what Google's leadership hoped to accomplish with that product. Rather, he is comparing the actual released products. Specifically, he says that competitors to Github had no "taste", which he seems to be using as shorthand for "making a polished product and really focusing on developer/user experience." You don't need to interview the folks who worked on Google Code to make that claim, any more than I need to interview Steven Spielberg before I comment on one of his movies. (Based on my memories of Google Code, I'd say the linked article's observations about Google Code are also absolutely correct, although that's really beside the point)

DannyBee 2y ago

"I'm not a journalist, but in an ideal scenario, how would somebody have known that you were one of the key members of the project?" It's not about asking me, it's about not asserting things you don't know. Instead of saying "people did x for y reason" when you have literally no data on x or y, you could say "I don't know why x happened, i only know about z". Or if it's super important you try to put something there, beforehand, you could say "hey does anyone know why x happened? I'm working on a blog post and want to get it right". Then, someone like me who saw it could happily email you or whatever and say "hey, here's the real story on x". Or not, in which case you can leave it at "i don't know". The right answer is not to just assert random things you make up in your head and force people to correct you. I'm aware of the old adage of basically "just put wrong stuff out there and someone will correct you", but i generally think that's super poor form when it's about *other people or things and their motivations". I care less when it's about "why is the sky blue". In this case, it also happens that there are plenty of on-record interviews and other things where what i said, was said back in the day. So a little spleunking would have told them the answer anyway.

shadowgovt 2y ago
To be a bit more generous: I think from Scott Chacon's point of view, "They had no taste and we beat them in the market" is a fair way to hold the elephant. Lacking the Google-internal perspective, it's a reasonable conclusion from the signal he has. I don't get the sense from this post that he's trying to publish a doctoral thesis on the historical situation in the industry; he's providing some primary-source testimony from his point of view.
- DannyBee 2y ago
  I guess i'm going to disagree with you. He's not just providing primary source testimony from his point of view, he's trying to pretend he has primary source testmony on what others were doing as well. If he left out the parts where he has no data (or said i don't know), it would have IMHO been a better post, and actually primary source testimony. You also don't run into the Gell-Mann amnesia problem this way. To each their own, of course.
2y ago

dlisboa 2y ago

Maybe a cofounder of GitHub has the reach and network to ask for the e-mail of someone who worked on the Google Code team. A journalist might not, that's true. Just flat out saying they had no taste in product development, however, is a bit of trash talking for no reason.

mattnewton 2y ago

Journalists are supposed to investigate not speculate because finding an email is too hard

jaredklewis 2y ago

Well, finding, vetting, and getting comments from sources is like half of journalism. If you can't or won't do that, whatever you are doing is probably not journalism. It's just an editorial, think-piece, or whatever.

fredgrott 2y ago

[flagged]