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Comment by wcarss | Hacker News Reader

I am bothered that Rob Pike's name can't carry its own weight, and instead he is referred to just as a "Google Executive".

People wouldn't be super surprised to find out one of the members of the UNIX team, a designer of Plan 9 and the author of editors like sam and acme dislikes aspects of Java and C++. Oh well, I guess "google executive" gets hits.

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I see this as somewhat more targeted at Enterprise Software type readers, or even non-tech people, where it makes a little more sense to pitch it that way. Something like: executive at big-but-iconoclastic company Google says the way other big companies write their software sucks.

Why would non-tech people be interested in Java, C++ complexity?

Probably not the languages specifically, but possibly interested in the general narrative of, "the two programming languages all the big companies use are too complex, and Google is doing things differently". But I could be wrong; PC World probably does have more software-engineering readers than non-programmer readers.

I would point out that it's not so much "other big companies" as it is what we've learned from our own sucking.

Google primarily write code in C++ and Java (with Python)

yes it's the Paul/Ringo effect. You know, that guy that was in Wings, and that other guy with the beard who wrote a children's book?

also note that "executive" becomes "distinguished Engineer" right in the first sentence!

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