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And in my opinion as a young talent, Google is highly overrated when it comes to creating good software. Sure they have some hits, but a lot of it also is kind

And in my opinion as a young talent, Google is highly overrated when it comes to creating good software. Sure they have some hits, but a lot of it also is kind of bad. To be regarded as the best of the best, I think they make pretty shitty software.

abrahamepton 11y ago
I feel similarly about Facebook. I feel it with some justification, but I'm probably wrong. To do what they do at the scale they do it, for it to even work let alone work pretty much perfectly, pretty much all the time for pretty much everyone is a goddamn miracle. But there are so many little things about FB software (mostly the UI/UX) that annoy the shit out of me, so I get grumpy and think their software sucks. Having worked at Google, I think it's worth saying, their software is fucking astonishingly amazing. The magic tricks that go into the simplest things are mindboggling, and what's been built behind the scenes to enable it all is pretty incredible. Also, um, a lot of their software is far from shitty: Gmail, search, docs+spreadsheets, new photos, youtube to name a few. If you think any one of those are "pretty shitty", well...I dunno what to tell you.
- veidr 11y ago
  Here's my list of things that you mentioned which aren't shitty: search
  - pennaMan 11y ago
    Can you name any other huge scale user facing software product that isn't shitty by your standards?
- pjc50 11y ago
  Gmail is good. Search is good. Docs+Sheets are .. ok for small things. The rest of Drive is a mess. I've not used the photos nor ever been linked to someone's gallery there. Youtube is technically impressive but also notorious for its comments section, and of course all of these are subject to the usual data retention questions.
davidcgl 11y ago
I'm not sure if you've worked at Google. There is a ton of bleeding edge software systems at Google that aren't user facing.

abrahamepton 11y ago

I feel similarly about Facebook. I feel it with some justification, but I'm probably wrong. To do what they do at the scale they do it, for it to even work let alone work pretty much perfectly, pretty much all the time for pretty much everyone is a goddamn miracle. But there are so many little things about FB software (mostly the UI/UX) that annoy the shit out of me, so I get grumpy and think their software sucks. Having worked at Google, I think it's worth saying, their software is fucking astonishingly amazing. The magic tricks that go into the simplest things are mindboggling, and what's been built behind the scenes to enable it all is pretty incredible. Also, um, a lot of their software is far from shitty: Gmail, search, docs+spreadsheets, new photos, youtube to name a few. If you think any one of those are "pretty shitty", well...I dunno what to tell you.

veidr 11y ago
Here's my list of things that you mentioned which aren't shitty: search
- pennaMan 11y ago
  Can you name any other huge scale user facing software product that isn't shitty by your standards?
pjc50 11y ago
Gmail is good. Search is good. Docs+Sheets are .. ok for small things. The rest of Drive is a mess. I've not used the photos nor ever been linked to someone's gallery there. Youtube is technically impressive but also notorious for its comments section, and of course all of these are subject to the usual data retention questions.

davidcgl 11y ago

I'm not sure if you've worked at Google. There is a ton of bleeding edge software systems at Google that aren't user facing.