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Google is heavily dependent on Java, Linux, Python, C++ etc. About two seconds of thought is all it takes to realize what an absurd claim this is. Google is al

Google is heavily dependent on Java, Linux, Python, C++ etc. About two seconds of thought is all it takes to realize what an absurd claim this is. Google is almost alone in building internet services at its scale. The people calling for adoption of exotic tech like Erlang without understanding their unique requirements are the fadsters.

derefr 13y ago
"Exotic tech" is the most amusing ad-hominem insult I've heard in a while. Erlang has more users than Go, at least, and more companies you could name off the top of your head have Erlang deployed somewhere (Github and Heroku, for just two.) Also, Google doesn't have "unique requirements." They have a unique set of overlapping, pretty common requirements. Some requirements in that set (e.g. serving data on dl.google.com) could be solved perfectly well by Erlang, and could have been for years, but can also now be solved perfectly well by Go. That they are now being solved by Go is likely an effect of the "Golang advocacy group" that has formed at Google. Others can't be solved by Erlang, but can be solved by Go (e.g. CPU-bound matrix-multiplications for PageRank index calculation), or vice-versa (e.g. deploying new Google Talk daemon code without dropping the XMPP connection.) I'm not saying Google could have used Erlang for everything. I'm not even saying there's not a place for Go. Just that Erlang has been around for a long time filling nearly the same niche as Go, and if Google are really rewriting all this software for the sake of switching to a language that is more apt for the problem-domain, then they could have done that years ago, without having to develop their own little language to do it with first.
- packetslave 13y ago
  I would say Google has a couple of fairly uncommon requirements: ridiculous scale and the fact that even a brief outage is world news. In terms of "rewriting all this software", I wouldn't say it's at all for the sake of switching to Go. It would be more accurate to say "well, we need to rewrite this thing anyway because it's no longer scalable or maintainable. Let's give Go a shot instead of C++/Java)"
  - threeseed 13y ago
    Fairly uncommon compared to your everyday website sure. But I can think of hundreds of companies that have ridiculous scale and brief outages would be newsworthy: Airline bookings, Stock exchanges, Betting markets, Postal services, Major websites (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn), Online Games, Video services, Payment gateways, Banks etc.
  - banachtarski 13y ago
    Scale in and of itself isn't the basis of a sufficient argument though. You can write software at that scale in Visual Basic if you have billions of hexcore machines at your disposal.
- cageface 13y ago
  Which hominem am I ad-ing exactly here? Plenty of sophisticated users have taken a long hard look at Erlang and chosen other tech, for a variety of good reasons. I guess Twitter is a bunch of NIH bumblers for passing on it as well? Go clearly has a pretty different set of design priorities, not the least of which are static typing and native code compilation. I'm inclined to give the people running Google's infrastructure the benefit of the doubt in making these choices.
  - derefr 13y ago
    Hey, don't group me in together with the downvoted guy here. I agree that Google have their own reasons to pick their own tech. I'm just saying that Erlang was probably a better solution than C++ for some of the things they were doing, and they could have switched to it years and years ago. They might then have created Go, and switch from Erlang to Go for those same projects. There'd be nothing wrong with that. I'm just surprised they were using C++ of all things to begin with, before rewriting in Go.
seiji 13y ago
Well, they wrote their own infringing java VM for mobile, tried to fix Python (but it didn't work out), essentially run Google Linux internally with various levels of contribution back upstream, and their C++ is (I'm just guessing here) nigh unreadable by non-übernerds.
- marshray 13y ago
  Wrote an "infringing Java VM" now did they? Did you actually read the court's ruling on that?
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    I did, and to be honest it is not much different than Microsoft with Visual J++. Without the "Google is cool glasses" on, I came to the conclusion that Google just took enough care to avoid all the legal traps that could make them loose a suit like it happened to Microsoft.
    - marshray 13y ago
      Disclosure: I work for Microsoft but that is a very new thing (the J++ dispute was many years ago) IIRC, the J++ suit had to do with the specific terms of a license agreement that Sun and Microsoft had entered into. I don't think it was much like this where Google claimed to have done a non-infringing clean-room reimplementation claiming this didn't require a license from Sun/Oracle at all.
      - pjmlp 13y ago
        Yes, this is what I mean by taking care. Google did a clean room implementation, while making a clear distinction between Java the language and Java the VM, while avoiding doing any kind of public statement that could violate the Java licensing trademark. So now you have an environment, where Java the language version 6 can be used, while Java the language version 8 is going to appear next year, without any signs of ever appearing in Android. Now, quite possibly as consequence of the litigation, Java developers targeting Android have to live with Java the language version 6 forever. The end result is no different than the fragmentation Microsoft attempted with J++, but since it is Google, it is ok to do so.

derefr 13y ago

"Exotic tech" is the most amusing ad-hominem insult I've heard in a while. Erlang has more users than Go, at least, and more companies you could name off the top of your head have Erlang deployed somewhere (Github and Heroku, for just two.) Also, Google doesn't have "unique requirements." They have a unique set of overlapping, pretty common requirements. Some requirements in that set (e.g. serving data on dl.google.com) could be solved perfectly well by Erlang, and could have been for years, but can also now be solved perfectly well by Go. That they are now being solved by Go is likely an effect of the "Golang advocacy group" that has formed at Google. Others can't be solved by Erlang, but can be solved by Go (e.g. CPU-bound matrix-multiplications for PageRank index calculation), or vice-versa (e.g. deploying new Google Talk daemon code without dropping the XMPP connection.) I'm not saying Google could have used Erlang for everything. I'm not even saying there's not a place for Go. Just that Erlang has been around for a long time filling nearly the same niche as Go, and if Google are really rewriting all this software for the sake of switching to a language that is more apt for the problem-domain, then they could have done that years ago, without having to develop their own little language to do it with first.

packetslave 13y ago
I would say Google has a couple of fairly uncommon requirements: ridiculous scale and the fact that even a brief outage is world news. In terms of "rewriting all this software", I wouldn't say it's at all for the sake of switching to Go. It would be more accurate to say "well, we need to rewrite this thing anyway because it's no longer scalable or maintainable. Let's give Go a shot instead of C++/Java)"
- threeseed 13y ago
  Fairly uncommon compared to your everyday website sure. But I can think of hundreds of companies that have ridiculous scale and brief outages would be newsworthy: Airline bookings, Stock exchanges, Betting markets, Postal services, Major websites (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn), Online Games, Video services, Payment gateways, Banks etc.
- banachtarski 13y ago
  Scale in and of itself isn't the basis of a sufficient argument though. You can write software at that scale in Visual Basic if you have billions of hexcore machines at your disposal.
cageface 13y ago
Which hominem am I ad-ing exactly here? Plenty of sophisticated users have taken a long hard look at Erlang and chosen other tech, for a variety of good reasons. I guess Twitter is a bunch of NIH bumblers for passing on it as well? Go clearly has a pretty different set of design priorities, not the least of which are static typing and native code compilation. I'm inclined to give the people running Google's infrastructure the benefit of the doubt in making these choices.
- derefr 13y ago
  Hey, don't group me in together with the downvoted guy here. I agree that Google have their own reasons to pick their own tech. I'm just saying that Erlang was probably a better solution than C++ for some of the things they were doing, and they could have switched to it years and years ago. They might then have created Go, and switch from Erlang to Go for those same projects. There'd be nothing wrong with that. I'm just surprised they were using C++ of all things to begin with, before rewriting in Go.

seiji 13y ago

Well, they wrote their own infringing java VM for mobile, tried to fix Python (but it didn't work out), essentially run Google Linux internally with various levels of contribution back upstream, and their C++ is (I'm just guessing here) nigh unreadable by non-übernerds.

marshray 13y ago
Wrote an "infringing Java VM" now did they? Did you actually read the court's ruling on that?
- pjmlp 13y ago
  I did, and to be honest it is not much different than Microsoft with Visual J++. Without the "Google is cool glasses" on, I came to the conclusion that Google just took enough care to avoid all the legal traps that could make them loose a suit like it happened to Microsoft.
  - marshray 13y ago
    Disclosure: I work for Microsoft but that is a very new thing (the J++ dispute was many years ago) IIRC, the J++ suit had to do with the specific terms of a license agreement that Sun and Microsoft had entered into. I don't think it was much like this where Google claimed to have done a non-infringing clean-room reimplementation claiming this didn't require a license from Sun/Oracle at all.
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      Yes, this is what I mean by taking care. Google did a clean room implementation, while making a clear distinction between Java the language and Java the VM, while avoiding doing any kind of public statement that could violate the Java licensing trademark. So now you have an environment, where Java the language version 6 can be used, while Java the language version 8 is going to appear next year, without any signs of ever appearing in Android. Now, quite possibly as consequence of the litigation, Java developers targeting Android have to live with Java the language version 6 forever. The end result is no different than the fragmentation Microsoft attempted with J++, but since it is Google, it is ok to do so.