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Comment by dexterlagan | Hacker News Reader

"The key point here is our programmers are Googlers, they’re not researchers. They’re typically, fairly young, fresh out of school, probably learned Java, maybe learned C or C++, probably learned Python. They’re not capable of understanding a brilliant language but we want to use them to build good software. So, the language that we give them has to be easy for them to understand and easy to adopt." – Rob Pike

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> the language that we give them has to be easy for them to understand and easy to adopt

All the respect for Rob Pike, but that makes no sense: learning ANY new language should be even easier for someone fresh out of school, and I imagine they set a high enough hiring bar to be sure that new engineers can adapt to whatever they are thrown at. All programming languages are easy to learn...

The harder part is figuring out process that are repeatable and result in high velocity and code quality, but I'd imagine that this is what an organization like Google is good at!

The hardest path is finding someone else (hiring) to read and understand the intentions behind your code.

> figuring out process that are repeatable and result in high velocity and code quality, but I'd imagine that this is what an organization like Google is good at!

Seems like Go is manifestation of such process. Because something like Rust is not for a repeatable process of _producing a lot of software_ by big teams with variation in experience and headcount. Rust is probably about _fewer people_ carefully designing _less_ of software, so it can be done once and stay forever.

Rust is for architecting bridges, Go is for paving streets.

well, when they convert the bulk of their stuff to go, if the plan works, and the theory is correct, then they can hire something more like a laborer instead of an engineer.

The main thing is that they are so huge, they can afford such experiments. I don't put much faith in that approach outside of a huge organization, and the jury is still out internally.

And given their shift to no brainteasers and no degree, and diversity and other non skill based focus, and sheer number of employees, the bar may not be set where you think it is these days. Hell it might not be much harder than stating your political beliefs (assuming you have the right political beliefs) based on recent cultural evidence.

"They’re not capable of understanding a brilliant language"

Wow, way to put down your engineers. What is the famously high hiring bar at Google for?

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