This guy lead the dev of AdWords first version using java

2001-2002 - Google

This section is a little off-topic, since this is supposed to be a history of Lisp at JPL, but some aspects of my experience at Google might nonetheless be of interest.

One of the reasons I stayed at JPL for twelve years was that I was appalled at what the software industry had become. The management world has tried to develop software engineering processes that allow people to be plugged into them like interchangeable components. The "interface specification" for these "components" usually involves a list of tools in which an engineer has received "training." (I really detest the use of the word "training" in relation to professional activities. Training is what you do to dogs. What you should be doing with people is educating them, not training them. There is a big, big difference.)

To my mind, the hallmark of the interchangeable component model of software engineers is Java. Without going into too many details, I'll just say that having programmed in Lisp the shortcomings of Java are glaringly obvious, and programming in Java means a life of continual and unremitting pain. So I vowed I would never be a Java programmer, which pretty much shut me out of 90% of all software engineering jobs in the late 90's. This was OK since I was managing to put together a reasonably successful career as a researcher. But after Remote Agent I found myself more and more frustrated, and the opportunity to work at Google just happened to coincide with a local frustration maximum.

One of the reasons I decided to go work for Google was that they were not using Java. So of course you can guess what my first assignment was: lead the inaugural Java development at the company, what eventually became Google AdWords. Thank God I had a junior engineer working for me who actually knew something about Java and didn't mind it so much. In the ancient tradition of senior-junior relationships, he did all the work, and I took all the credit. (Well, not quite -- I did write the billing system, including a pretty wizzy security system that keeps the credit card numbers secure even against dishonest employees. But Jeremy wrote the Lion's share of AdWords version 1.)

I did try to introduce Lisp to Google. Having had some experience selling Lisp at JPL I got all my ducks in a row, had a cool demo going, showed it to all the other members of the ads team, and had them all convinced that this was a good idea. The only thing left was to get approval from the VP of engineering. The conversation went something like this:

Me:  I'd like to talk to you about something...
Him: Let me guess - you want to use Smalltalk.
Me:  Er, no...
Him: Lisp?
Me: Right.
Him:  No way.

And that was the end of Lisp at Google. In retrospect I am not convinced that he made the wrong decision. The interchangeable component model of software engineers seemed to work reasonably well there. It's just not a business model in which I wish to be involved, at least not on the component-provider side. So after a year at Google I quit and returned to JPL.

http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html