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Comment by electrograv | Hacker News Reader

> Then less than 1 year later Google cancelled that project and now there is nobody to provide that service.

This made me imagine some poor, bright but new-hire Google PR employee realizing this popular (and quite correct) view of Google ("CANCEL ALL THE THINGS" [1][2]) frantically trying to figure out how to actually communicate to upper management (without getting fired) the blunt truth:

This ongoing strategy of announcing projects and promptly canceling them after a few years is incredibly damaging to the company. Google's "ADHD-like low attention span" to projects is anything but confidence-inspiring. :(

1. http://memegenerator.net/X-All-The-Things

2. HN likes numbered references and I do too

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No one would get fired for saying that, but (clearly) the company has decided that the current strategy is the right one.

My take is that Google is less developer-friendly than Microsoft and Apple. Google does not rely on external developers as much, because so much revenue comes from web based, directly consumer facing products. Google is always trying new things, because they are looking for the next big user facing product. This might annoy developers who build against Google's APIs, but that is worth it because Google relies on users, not loyal developers. It is a fundamentally different approach from Windows or iOS.

I disagree, Google constantly gives developers free resources and run a very powerful and cheap cloud network. I think they are at least on par with Microsoft. I am a developer and I don't use any ms products, but I use quite a few of the ones Google offers. Google's cloud is significantly cheaper than Azure as well (actually GCN is about on par with most others, its just Azure is very expensive), I have compared many times. About Apple, I love their products, but they aren't very developer friendly. Their eco system is very closed, they don't support many tools other than the ones used to developer directly to their platform. Their eco system is just very profitable, so we put up with it. I have always seen it as, Google is the developer's company, Microsoft's the enterprise company, and Apple's the consumer's company.

A few examples

>AngularJS

>AOSP

>Google Maps

>GCN

>Chrome Dev Tools

>Polymer and Material Design

>Go

>Dart

I observed the same thing. Microsoft is the company who cares about developers more.

I can tell my odd experience about Microsoft: my company reverse engineered many of its products and offered APIs around products without APIs. One day someone from QA sent us an e-mail offering help if some of these products have issues with Windows 7!

The microsoft that's out there right now making using or reimplementing an api illegal?

What do you mean with illegal?

Doesn't MS rely on users too? Users of Windows, instead of users of browsers, but it's still in both of their interests to get developers using their platforms.

At the end of the day, all large companies have to dip their toes in new technologies, or die. Some of these projects will work out and others won't. Small companies do the exact same thing, except instead of announcing they are discontinuing a project they go bust.

My approach is not to get too tied to any vendor's technology, because if you do, you're setting yourself up for a fall. The rise of open source and standards has made this much easier than it once was, luckily.

Yea, exactly. But fan boyism runs deep in this industry, particularly on forums. It incredible to see my collogues get so caught up in one mega corp and then spend so much of their time trashing 'their' mega corps competition. I use each for what they are worth and I enjoy to watch them come, go, and compete.

I don't work for Microsoft, and it's sad that you assume anyone with a different opinion from yourself is a fanboy.

I said "But fan boyism runs deep in this industry, particularly on forums. It incredible to see my collogues get so caught up in one mega corp and then spend so much of their time trashing 'their' mega corps competition." Where am I generally calling people with different opinions than mine fan boys. I agree and disagree with many fan boys. I am a fan of the products I use, but I am quick to move to new products if I have the means and my experience with the other products is superior.

Google search, GMail, Youtube are not platforms. They don't rely on an ecosystem of external developers. Android is, but it is generally considered less developer friendly than iOS.

Any reference on it being "generally considered less developer friendly"?

I get the impression that MS these days are trying to depreciate Windows in favor of their cloud services.

In a sense it is a return to the MS that was before the IBM PC, when they were supplying office and development tools to all comers (MS Office got its start on Apple computers after all).

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