What happened to all those smart programmers Google hired?



  • The WebM (VP8) FAQ:

    "The VP8 and WebM specifications as released on May 19th, 2010 are final. We believe that the code and tools can evolve and improve for many years without requiring changes to the core specifications."

    Technical analysis of VP8

    "The spec consists largely of C code copy-pasted from the VP8 source code — up to and including TODOs, “optimizations”, and even C-specific hacks, such as workarounds for the undefined behavior of signed right shift on negative numbers. In many places it is simply outright opaque.  Some parts even explicitly refuse to fully explain a particular feature, pointing to highly-optimized, nigh-impossible-to-understand reference code for an explanation. There’s no way in hell anyone could write a decoder solely with this spec alone."

    "The encoder and decoder share a staggering amount of code.  This means that any bug in the common code will affect both, and thus won’t be spotted because it will affect them both in a matching fashion.  This is the inherent problem with any file format that doesn’t have independent implementations and is defined by a piece of software instead of a spec"

    " While the C code isn’t half bad, the assembly is clearly written by retarded monkeys."

    " With the lack of a real spec, the VP8 software basically is the spec, and with the spec being “final”, any bugs are now set in stone.  Such bugs have already been found and Google has rejected fixes."

     "This is just like Internet Explorer 6 all over again — bugs in the software become part of the “spec”!"

     

     



  •  Well afaik the bitstream is final, which isn't that strange. I can't imagine that there are any serious "bugs" in the bitstream which need fixing and make it unrecognisable for "old" decoders. They would more be design flaws.

     Also note that the programmers of the x264 have critisized VP8 and WebM from the start and are mostly in favor of making H.264 the de facto standard for video internet. I'm not saying they might not have points, I'm just saying that just because Microsoft has a "get the facts" campaign that that does not necessairily mean that linux really is 10x less secure and 10x more expensive.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    What happened to all those smart programmers Google hired?

     

     They all moved back to Bangalore?



  • @El_Heffe said:

    What happened to all those smart programmers Google hired?

    To answer the subject line:

    Being able to solve riddles on billboards is a *type* of smart. I'm not convinced that it's related at all to the type of smart that can write, maintain, and market good software projects.

    The two PhDs on my team are close to the most useless members of it. The college drop-outs (that is, me) are the most useful and flexible. Today one of the PhD's pulled me over to his desk to have a 45 minute conversation in which he was basically logically deriving what value we should put into a specific variable. That's when I said, screw this, dialed the number in the sig of the email he was looking at, and took the extraordinary step of *calling the damned vendor and just asking*. Not only was the problem solved in 5 minutes of pleasant conversation, but the vendor fixed the docs so the same confusion won't happen again.

    This also presumes Google hires smart people in the first place. I didn't even get past their screening because I didn't know what a .PST file was. (As if that was somehow relevant to the position advertised!) They have the same idiotic obstructive HR department as every other company their size.



  • @dtech said:

    Also note that the programmers of the x264 have critisized VP8 and WebM from the start and are mostly in favor of making H.264 the de facto standard for video internet.
    They are? Don't forget that one of the two core x264 developers (the same guy that wrote the original critique of VP8 spec) co-developed the first independent VP8 decoder.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    What happened to all those smart programmers Google hired?

    They're all dead

    I heard they where fed to the The Unnamable in the basement



  • @fatdog said:

    I heard they where fed to the The Unnamable in the basement
     

    The Deep Crow?



  • @dhromed said:

    @fatdog said:

    I heard they where fed to the The Unnamable in the basement
     

    The Deep Crow?

     

    Apparently Lord Voldemort now works at Google.


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