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Comment by Ronkdar | Hacker News Reader

> It just works.

Can we stop saying this please?

> "Your apps, documents, and settings are stored safely in the cloud."

Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give it back (this has happened to more than one person)

> Millions of apps.

[citation needed]

> Friends let friends login.

Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users"

>Gets faster over time.

What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing halfway through and pegged it 1.0?

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What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing halfway through and pegged it 1.0?

Are you a programmer? The idea that there is a finish line for optimizing a program (beyond "This seems fast enough") is weird, and not the sort of thing I'd expect to hear from anyone who's ever done it. You do just have to stop at some point and release. Otherwise you'll keep improving things until the heat death of the universe.

IIRC, the Chrome team has a zero-tolerance policy on performance regressions. Since it auto-updates, it should get faster over time.

What I meant was "We know there's tons of things we can still optimize, but we're just gonna release now anyways."

Again, that's just how software goes. I'm sure anyone who has released software could give you a laundry list of things he would have liked to have done, but didn't have time. Should they slide the release a year or two so they have time to feel better about how well it's optimized for speed? Generally, no.

At any rate, unless the software has been around for many decades and the best minds in computer science have failed to improve upon it, you can generally feel confident that there are tons of things you can still optimize.

I agree with you 100%, especially on the "It just works" point, but you're wrong on the "friends let friends login" thing. As far as i know, no other OS allows me to log into someone else's computer and get the exact same experience i have on my own, and vice versa.

I've always wanted it to work this way. Even just a few years ago, I'd never imagine this would be accomplished by using a browser-based operating system.

> Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give it back (this has happened to more than one person)

Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this?

> Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users"

No other OS saves OS settings and apps in the cloud, to my knowledge.

> What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing halfway through and pegged it 1.0?

They are talking about the auto-update feature.

Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this?

If Google deletes your Google/GMail account, can you still login to your Chromebook?

You don't need to login at all.

Nice. For some reason I thought you needed a Google account to use it. Now that I know you don't that's a plus. Not enough of a plus, but it's one less thing to worry about.

It's a plus, but is it a Google plus? /rimshot

> Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this?

You don't use your Facebook account to log into a Chromebook.

It is probably a safe bet to assume the parent knows this.

What is wrong with "It just works"? I have found that there are very few pieces of software out there (especially operating systems) that truly "just work" out of the box. Most software requires at least some setup, customization, and a period of futzing-around before a user becomes proficient at its use. Chrome OS does one thing, and it claims to do it very well. Until most software is incredibly easy to use, I think "it just works" is a very appropriate advertisement.

Every modern operating system that I'm aware of gains performance increases through software updates. That does not mean that every company that creates operating systems purposely makes their operating system slower to gain favor over time.

> > Friends let friends login.

> Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users"

Uh, not iphones/pads (iOS)... so yes that is a big deal

If by no specific reason you mean "blatant violation of AdSense terms of service," then yes.

Engineers think in features

Customers think in benefits

"men are from mars women are from venus" "apples and oranges"

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