Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Authority-by-being-employed-by-Google, rather than by-reproducable-data

Many things rub me up the wrong way. This is one of them.

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1734346&cid=33051506

In summary - the post asserts some interesting facts (which I believe, having done high volume HTTP stuff myself) but when asked about benchmarks to back up his assertions, he replies:

"Unfortunately, nothing I can publish without permission. I can say that I'm in charge of maintaining the software that terminates all HTTP traffic for Google. Draw your own conclusions."

I really do dislike "I work in this area in Google" as a measure of authority. My conclusion is that the developer in question, as clever as he should be, should likely read some history books on "authority by being high up in the priesthood" and where that takes people.

Grr.

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