Google Wave - Product, Platform, and Protocol

• Attempt to answer “what would email look like if it was developed today”
• Combines Gmail, Translation, collaboration via Google Docs, Photos, etc., all in one
• Because it is completely open, companies can host their own instances of Wave and Google never has to see the data – yet the users of separate platforms can still communicate with each other!

TechCrunch coverage
Google Wave
Google Wave APIs
Google Wave Protocols

I’m looking forward to WordCamp this weekend.  I’m curious to see if there will be any WordPress / Google Wave integration already.  Being able to have blog comments automatically pushed to users who aren’t actually looking at your blog would be a huge win.  If there’s no WordPress integration project already, I may just start one.

Wednesday 5/27/2009

San Francisco, CA #io2009

Better liveblogging here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/27/live-from-google-io-2009/

100x improvement in JavaScript speed in the last decade

Firefox, Chrome, Safari, & Opera – all supporting HTML5 with Canvas, Video, Geolocation, App cache / database, Web workers

Canvas tag – supported in all but IE

Bespin – web IDE

Chrome profiler is built completely in HTML5

O3D – OpenSource 3d in JavaScript

Video tag – get video out of “plugin prison”

YouTube demo with <video> tag

Geolocation – supported in all browsers but IE

Mozillia VP – “A good API in 4 browsers is better than a perfect API in 0 or 1 browsers”

Google Maps will soon be adding a geolocation button

Announcement: Google Latitude on the iPhone in the browser using geolocation (WOW)

App cache / database – supported in all browsers but IE

Demo: with Safari – manifest file names cached application/graphics files

Demo: web app on Android with GMail in airplane mode – extremely fast

Web workers – threads in the browser – so JavaScript doesn’t completely freeze the browser

Demo: motion detection from the video tag all in JavaScript

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Google App Engine

200,000+ developers, 80,000 + applications

Whitehouse app had 700 requests/second with no problem

Announcement: Java open on App Engine

Demo: develop an Ajax app in Eclipse (with Google plugin) in Java on both serverside (app engine) and client side (GWT) extremely quickly.  Just hit deploy (no FTP) in Eclipse.

Google Web Toolkit

Upcoming: Debug directly in any browser

Upcoming: runAsync() lets the compiler split up JavaScript files.  Example: 1.4MB to 200KB, compiler handled dependencies itself.

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Google Web Elements (announcement)

Copy and paste website content:

Calendar, Conversation, Custom Search, Maps, News, Presentations, etc.

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Android - coming soon new features

FREE ANDROID for everyone!

I’m still playing with them both but the first thing I realized was that they would have to do better than use the 16×16 favicons.  I was able to extract the official high resolution Google icons from the Google Gears desktop shortcuts for GMail and GCal, so they are attached.  These will work for Fluid.  For Prism, you’ll have to use the PNGs attached.

Later I found Chris Ivarson’s page with some great icons, but my first couple Google searches didn’t lead me there, and he doesn’t have the standard icons that come from Google.

Edit 1: By the way, I have chosen Fluid because its icon shows me my number of unread messages so I can keep it hidden when I don’t have new mail… very helpful.

Edit 2: By popular request, I just added a Fluid icon for Google Wave also

Attachments: gcal.icns gmail.icns google_wave.icns

I learned a lot at Google. I did a combination of development for the front-end (JavaScript/AJAX, CSS/HTML) as well as on the back-end (PHP, Java). Every line of code that I wrote was code reviewed by another Googler before it could be checked in. At first I thought this was an unnecessary and time-wasting procedure, but I came to understand the importance of this, even for the seemingly unimportant pieces of code. When you know someone else is going to be looking at your code, it forces you to program more clearly and concisely, and I learned better coding techniques from the code reviews. Also, by ensuring that all code at Google conforms to the same style guides, any engineer can quickly jump into someone else’s code with the smallest possible learning curve.

My software engineering internship was pretty unique and flexible because of the team that I was on, so I also had the opportunity to do a good bit of UI (user interface) work. I designed from scratch, improved existing UIs, and did research and make recommendations for better UIs. My other team members (here’s two) were very talented and I was able to learn a lot just by working along side them. Working at a company like Google is great because you are constantly surrounded by very intelligent people.

It is a great feeling to know that you’re working at a company which is providing products and services that millions of people use every day. It is an even better feeling to know that your work is directly being used and liked by real people. At Google, while doing research for one of my projects, I had an idea that would help save other Googlers time and make them more productive. Without getting into details about the project itself, after about 1,000 lines of JavaScript, I had created something that a lot of Googlers started using, talking about, and sharing with others. It wasn’t a world changing application that is being launched externally any time soon, but it was useful enough that we could actually see it spreading virally throughout the company, and I got over 100 thank you emails within a few days. I can only imagine the great feeling it would have been to create an external product (like GMail), that millions of people love and use daily.

Another great part of the summer was the opportunities for networking. I was able to visit Meebo for another great lunch2.0, visited the offices of Facebook a couple times, met the creator of Mint (which I think is my favorite web2.0 app of the year), attended WordCamp, and attended the Techcrunch Party 9 at August Capital. It was also great seeing, meeting, and hanging out with a lot of other young people working in the web space – other Google interns, friends at Yahoo! and eBay, those doing startups, others working in the Bay Area, and friends who flew out to visit.
Overall, I’d give the summer a thumbs up. For now, I’m back in Gainesville studying Computer Engineering at UF, where the weather is significantly hotter. A lot of people have asked me about next summer and what I want to do when I graduate. I still do not know. I could definitely see myself at a company like Google, but for now I am just looking forward to a new semester at school and am not making any definite plans yet.

My title will be Software Engineering Intern, and I’ve been placed on a team that works on web applications for Google’s intranet. I won’t be able to discuss any specifics of what I’m working on once I begin, but I’m expecting it will relate to primarily front-end work (user interfaces and such using HTML/CSS and JavaScript/AJAX) as well as some PHP.

I’ll be out in the San Francisco Bay area again (6/5/07 – 8/10/07), most likely living near downtown San Jose. I’m definitely looking forward to reconnecting with many of the people I met last year there and meeting many more.

Lastly, some people have asked me about Yahoo!, and why I’m not returning there for another summer. I had an incredible experience at Yahoo! last summer; it is a leading web company and I learned a lot by being there. However, I feel like my summer would be better spent at Google for a few reasons. First of all, this is the one time in my life where I’m able to easily check out multiple competing companies in a relatively short period of time. Secondly, while Yahoo! is doing great things, Google is behind more products that I currently use on a daily basis and I have a strong appreciation for their simple but powerful interfaces such as Gmail and Google Calendar. I’m not putting Yahoo! out of the question in terms of future employment, but I also don’t feel an obligation to go back.

I’m looking forward to this summer at Google. I expect to learn a lot and will hopefully have another great, eye-opening experience.

Here is the CSS:

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margin: 9px 9px 0 9px;
padding: 5px 0px 6px 10px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #afafaf;
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ul.menu li {
margin: 0px;
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display: inline;
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ul.menu li a {
margin: 0;
padding: 5px 12px 6px 12px;
border: 1px solid #afafaf;
background: #DDE;
font: normal 12pt Georgia, 'Times New Roman';
color: black;
text-decoration: none;
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ul.menu li a:hover {
background: #333;
color: #eee;
text-decoration: none;
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ul.menu li.current_page_item a,
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border-top: 1px solid #afafaf;
border-bottom: 1px solid white;
background: white;
color: #333;
text-decoration: none;
}