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Comment by B-Con | Hacker News Reader

As a Googler, that statement is just wrong. They were looking for a fun story and somehow got just the right quote to make one.

Code committed to the internal repo requires a review from someone certified familiar with that language's internal style guide.

He was hired to work on Go, not C, and just didn't get around to writing enough C to bother getting that certification. He can write C whenever he wants to, just like literally every other engineer, he would just get a style guide review at review time.

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Indeed... I wonder why anyone would think ken would magically be familiar with Google’s internal C++ (not C!) style. I’m sure he would admit that he isn’t, and doesn’t deserve to be granted the C++ Readability certification just because he was involved in C’s development.

But it was not about some "certification." He states was not allowed to check in the C code he wrote, lacking a Google required exam. To quote that once again:

"Google hired Thompson to create a new language, Go. But Google also requires all of its recruits to pass a language test. According to Thompson, he hasn't quite got round to it yet - and so can't submit code."

It's not and it wasn't about any C++ "certifications." He was involved in the creation of a new language. For the new language there could have not been any existing certification. And as far as I know, the initial implementation language of Go was not C++ but C. In creation of which was Thompson also directly involved. And as far as I know the people worked on the parts of the code before Google and these parts of said C code already existed before Google (Go had some dependencies on code from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(operating_system)).

So it was indeed as absurd as it could have been. He was a part of the team that directly invented both the language and the style guide of the language, but some bureaucratic exam was expected from him to submit the code to the source control system.

As I said above, the literal interpretation flat out wrong. There is no mechanism that exists now nor in the past to make the statement literally true as written.

I don't know how they managed to get that statement, but it's misleading. Many misconceptions begin with an element of truth. I'm guessing the element of truth here was the "certification" process. (Maybe it was something else, like a mixup having him as an advisor accidentally caused him to not be hired into the engineering group and thus there was a wait before he got engineering credentials to view/edit code. But that kind of thing is just silly paperwork and clearly fixed promptly.)

I just checked. He had literally written some C++ code before that snippet was published.

It was not the absurd statement it's been made out to be. It sounds unbelievable for a reason: It is unbelievable because it didn't happen.

But writing this you 1) just confirm that there are mechanisms by which he could have be not allowed to check in the code; 2) show how invested in the claim you are by comparing the date the Thompson statement was published and some date from the source control attributed to him, which again proves nothing -- his statement could have been true before it was published. I'm still puzzled by the passion behind "didn't happen" claim which still remains unsupported, while showing that the mechanisms for the Thompson's statement to be true unsurprisingly exist. I'm also surprised by your insistence on "C++" sources and "certification" there because neither is a part of his statement.

We are insistent because we have first hand knowledge of how Google’s code review and readability processes work.

I didn't get that impression, considering the uniqueness of Thompson's engagement: the major point from the start was that he was not an intern who came to add a few lines in existing C++ code. He was there with the bunch of old C (not C++) code which was already written according to different rules, and was to develop a new language for which he was to write the rules (with other such developers). Additionally, he was involved not only in developing that C code, but in initial development of very C language! Under all these circumstances, he apparently couldn't check in the code, for not passing some "test."

Your failure to even recognize all that (instead mentioning "C++" and "certification" which is not the same) and to address the fact that these circumstances completely differ from your own much more narrow experience with established practices when checking in C++ code for which the bureaucratic rules already existed simply doesn't tell me that you can be believed regarding organization's capability to not react bureaucratically. Which is what Thompson apparently said and I still find, as I explain, very believable.

That is how I searched in the responses for any claim which would directly support your opinion, and still haven't found it.

I have no problem to admit I was wrong, but I'd really like to see some direct proof. Like somebody investigating what actually happened there and getting some first hand account. Not the talk about "C++" and existing rules for that (for which there is up to now a confirmation of strong enforcement, not tolerance).

Ken is a friend and colleague. I worked with for years on the Go team, from the early days.

But ken was at Google a long time before the Go project started. (The Go project was not developed in Google's monorepo and was not subject to Google's readabiliy process, as is the case for many Google projects.) What ken was referring to was indeed the C++ Readability process (which doesn't stop anyone committing code, just requires a review from a person with the 'readability' certification before committing; as mentioned upthread). I know this from talking to him about it, specifically.

I can't offer you any more proof other than the fact that I was a witness. If you don't believe that, then I'm sorry? Not sure what else to tell you.

FWIW your conduct in this thread is extremely obnoxious. I'm sure you'll find a way to debate that, too, but please consider that I have no vested interest in telling you this other than hoping you might better learn how your conduct is perceived by others.

> I know this from talking to him about it, specifically.

Perfect! So what's the exact story, then, finally?

1) Was the quote from him completely invented?

2) Was he allowed to check in or not? Did he need the test to check in at that moment to which the quote refers? (I don't care about the moment when it was published).

3) And even more specifically: were there ever the times where he was in Google but when he not able to check in the code lacking some Google-prescribed "test"?

Just "yes", "no" or "I don't know" there, please. Also (just for my curiosity):

4) How long that period lasted?

Then you can elaborate where I was wrong by searching thorough what I've written -- I've specifically quoted the article and talked about his C background and involvement in a new language, never claimed anything about his C++ code and a "certification." I have an impression that your perception of what I've written and that, what I actually have written don't match.

> 1) just confirm that there are mechanisms by which he could have be not allowed to check in the code

If that's what you read out of the post, when I literally said the opposite, I can't reason with you.

You’re quoting a journalist paraphrasing ken. I was actually there. It was not as you say.

Wasn't Go...written in C?

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