Saturday, February 19, 2011

Not quite so ranty Mouse

I got asked at a user group last week why I've stopped ranting. I spent a good ten years ranting across a wide variety of blogging platforms, and since becoming a DevRel at Google, I've stopped.

I had to think for a couple of days as to why I haven't felt the need to get it off my chest of late. The short summary is that joining Google has highlighted the fact that all the tools you need to build world beating software are already out there. It's just a matter of investing the time in learning the tools, the technology, and mastering a domain that interests you.

Interested in mobile phones? Learn Android. Interested in web applications? AppEngine and GWT give you enormous power. Want to build games? WebGL is up and running in the latest Chrome and Firefox betas, with Opera not too far behind. And if you are really hardcore, Native Client is shaping up as a good way to ship C++ code to clients without having to deal with cross platform and logitics head aches.

I always thought that the geniuses at Google had access to amazing tools that allowed them to build applications like Google Docs that were beyond the reach of mere mortals. Now that I have spent time amongst Googlers, I've realised that all of these applications were built by very smart, very dedicated teams. That level of dedication is open to anyone, if they choose to chase their dreams...