17 ms·
> You guys cloned a whole suite of products in a short period of time that cost millions of dollars. At the risk of stating the obvious, the functionality isn'
by Alex3917 9mo ago
> You guys cloned a whole suite of products in a short period of time that cost millions of dollars.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the functionality isn't actually cloned, only the UI. The actual code powering Gmail probably dates back to the late 80s or early 90s and has had several hundred thousands of hours of work put into it. This is just a webpage that looks kind of similar.
I point this out only because I've seen people saying that software businesses don't have moats anymore because of this, which is taking away a completely false lesson.
- malloc2048 9mo ago[flagged]
- MarcelOlsz 9mo ago>I decided to get the Max 20x plan, and prompting 4 projects with each 2 to 3 running 'conversations' , never hit the limit anymore. Can you expand on this please? Really cool btw.
- jonathanstrange 9mo agoOut of curiosity, would you explain what you mean by that? Google was founded in 1998 and writing a mail client isn't terribly complicated. Did they buy some code for Gmail from an older company? Is Gmail older than Google?
- randall 9mo agoit is not. gmail is 100% from paul bucheit.
- Alex3917 9mo agoHe wasn't sitting there writing binary code and implementing all 7 layers of the OSI stack by hand, he was was gluing together pre-existing components. And the pre-existing components he had access to include two major email startups acquired by Google in 2001 and 2003, which were founded in 1995 and 1997 respectively. (Although he does have at least two patents for features and algorithms he co-invented while making Gmail.)
- wordpad 9mo agoA full featured mailed client is insanely complicated. If you think mail client is just smtp, you probably think word is just text with some styling and excel is just some cells and functions.
- appreciatorBus 9mo agoI’m sure, buried somewhere deep in Google systems, are vestiges of mail server code originally written in the 80s. But when people use the name Gmail, they are generally referring to the client facing web app, which does not have any such code.
- surajrmal 9mo agoIf it exists, it's probably not at all related to Gmail or only used for testing. I don't think Google reuses a lot of third party code in its first party server software.
- HeWhoLurksLate 9mo agohttps://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf I mean it has happened in other Google products...
- dboreham 9mo agoEven "just smtp" isn't trivial.
- pshirshov 9mo agoIt is, or was at least. At the age of 13, I've created one for Windows. It was relatively widely used at the time.
- esseph 9mo agoGmail is not just a mail client.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- Alex3917 9mo ago> Did they buy some code for Gmail from an older company? They bought both Deja and Neotonic.
- 113 9mo agoI don't know if I'm just misremembering but it feels like over the last three years or so the technical knowledge on HN has gone down the toilet.
- sheepscreek 9mo agoMost *nix tools have their origins in the ‘70s-80s. Email as a technology is ancient by today’s standards. SMTP protocol got established in 1982. Even sendmail dates as far back as the ‘70s.
- Alex3917 9mo agoThis is a pretty good talk on the history of email: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrGfahzt-4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrGfahzt-4Q
- doctorpangloss 9mo agohttps://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mail-with-tom-van-vleck-part-one/ https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20... Another great article
- deathslocus 9mo agoAnd the earlier technology of homing pigeons goes back even further
- inquirerGeneral 9mo agoIt's Reddit type conversation often
- zahlman 9mo agoCould it instead be that less technically inclined people feel more empowered to hang out here?
- DrewADesign 9mo ago
- bryanrasmussen 9mo agoI mean it is so obvious causing me to find the use of the phrase cloned so weird that I feel it needs to be said. The UI cloning doesn't feel exactly correct either there are things that are slightly off. But I just find the "cloned" wrong, because obviously you cannot send an email from this account, you cannot log in to the service as Jeffrey Epstein, you cannot delete emails, create alerts based on searches, do actions on selected emails (create new tag, move under that tag) there are so many functionalities that are not cloned because obviously they could not be cloned because they would make no sense for what this project is. So just the praise for cloning so quickly makes me sort of mad. You could theoretically make something like this that allowed log in so you got a personalized epstein mails, and then could do all that, and perhaps get more mails sent in as files get released, and perhaps create Google alerts on epstein in the news etc. that would come as mails and maybe the code could put news that came in, into the appropriate the tags etc. But until that time "cloned" is just very wrong.
- DonHopkins 9mo agoFor the holidays, they should at least implement a Shockingly Distasteful Jeffrey Epstein Christmas Card Meme Generator.
- a-dub 9mo ago> The actual code powering Gmail probably dates back to the late 80s or early 90s and has had several hundred thousands of hours of work put into it. no. google did not exist until the late 90s. various forms of internet email sure did, but most popular mtas of the google era shared very little code with predecessors from the 80s and early 90s (maybe sendmail) and google almost certainly wrote their own from scratch. but your first point. that an archive browser that looks like gmail is not equivalent to a full tilt email service backend is valid.
- nntwozz 9mo agoWhy stop there, I'm sure you can trace Gmail all the way back to the Roman aqueducts.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- AntiqueFig 9mo agoI mean technically if we didn't have Roman aqueducts, would we have Gmail today?
- bregma 9mo agoAll right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, public health, and GMail what have the Romans ever done for us?
- DonHopkins 9mo agoAll right, but apart from Google Wave, Google Reader, Google+, Inbox, Stadia, Project Ara, Google Glass, Loon, Picasa, Orkut, Hangouts, Allo, Duo, Google Domains, Google Health, Google Notebook, iGoogle, Knol, Jaiku, Daydream VR, Google Play Music, Nexus, Fusion Tables, Bump, Revolv, Songza, QuickOffice, Meebo, Panoramio, Milk, Schemer, Sparrow, Poly, Tilt Brush, Tour Builder, URL Shortener, Latitude, Spaces, Google Hire, Google Bulletin, Shoelace, and Neighbourly, Android Things, Project Tango, Ara Module Marketplace, Google TV, Nexus Q, Google Play Newsstand, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Podcasts, Google Now, Google Now Launcher, Google Goggles, Gesture Search, MyTracks, Google Play Edition, Android Auto for Phone Screens, All Access, Google Currents, Google SMS Search, Google Cloud Messaging, Android Beam, Androidify, Field Trip, Google Currents, and Google Play Artist Hub, what has Google ever done for us?
- LightBug1 9mo agoI'm a little out of the loop. Are any of those still active projects?