Could we live without Google?

[aditya_mayhem]

no wayz can i live w/o google

[SLK]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Regarding Yahoo Search and MSN search, they still have a long way to go to be as good as Google's search engine.

Yahoo, shared the same google core for quite sometime.... now they have started to customise it on their own... but it is still very comparable to google.

As for me - I can live without google... but not without any search engine.

[bigman]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Been there, done that. When I first laid my hands on a web browser (Mosaic) on my Sun Sparc work station in early 1994, I had no access to any search engine, in fact it was a unknown concept, at least to us.

So what did we do? Most of the techies including me learnt html within hours and were passing out our URLs to each other. The web server was installed within our lan and was accessible from all over AT&T Bell Labs networks. We used it to distribute office documents, personal info, images (of all kinds...), etc. We didn't go outside of our network much since we didn't know any external websites. Once in a while somebody passed around some external IP addresses and we would all pounce on it and view the sites.

One day I saw a special IP address at some Usenet group. A search engine web site. We could search for keywords and it would list websites relevant to that keyword. I enjoyed that for a week, but somehow I lost that address. Oh man! that was bad. That's when I realised the importance of a search engine.

Few months later our browsers were replaced by something called Netscape and you wouldn't believe this, it had web search engine links available upon installation. Rest was history.

Wow, I also remember surfing the internet (what there was of it, mainly University sites) on a Sun Sparc station running Mosaic in 1994. Like you later we got Netscape. We also used to use gopher to search for information. There also used to be archie (xarchie ?) to search for software. We used to used use the command tool to ftp into software sites.

After a few years there were a few search engines, yahoo, hotbot, excite and later Alta Vista. Then the daddy Google came on the scene. I have never used another search engine since. I always found yahoo cumbersome and the hits were usually rubbish and irrelevant.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Hmm, what happens to programmers who don't have access to google or Internet from work even now, say like TCS or Infosys?

I know quite a few TCS employees who not only have complete access to the net, but chat servers as well, like ym, msn etc. Infosys is a different case as they follow a conveyor belt model of train-work-retrain-work-retrain-work... and so on. Not every company can afford that. Wipro has a project by project kind of policy. When i was in wipro, my project had 24 hr net access whereas most didnt have net access during office hours.

Amitoj

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by bigman

Wow, I also remember surfing the internet (what there was of it, mainly University sites) on a Sun Sparc station running Mosaic in 1994. Like you later we got Netscape. We also used to use gopher to search for information. There also used to be archie (xarchie ?) to search for software. We used to used use the command tool to ftp into software sites.

Remember the commandline tool rn, for reading news groups like S.C.I and of course Dr.Jai Maharaj.

Originally Posted by bigman

After a few years there were a few search engines, yahoo, hotbot, excite and later Alta Vista.

The first real engine I remember is webcrawler.

Now, coming to the main question. Can I live without google? Yup, I can. I can live without Internet too. But if I have Internet and no search engine, that could be a problem.

[shuvc]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Infosys is a different case as they follow a conveyor belt model of train-work-retrain-work-retrain-work... and so on.

From whatever experience I have had, the retrain phases were not so evident. It's more of work-work-work .

But generally 3yr+ people (designation - PA) have access to the net. There are project specific accesses too .. reality is, they too refer to the net a lot ..

[RX135]

No access to Net? I never had previlege to work for such companies, so I wouldn't know that. But, I remember in my previous organization, whenever our net connection went down, people were out of office sipping tea on nearby "chaay tapri" or taking a walk.

Samurai, with your post, old memories of elm, pine, Lynx resurfaced. Damn! being nostalgic like this only means that I am getting old

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by ntomer

How I wish that there was a google in real life as well, which I can find out lost keys, remote controls, papers....

\N

For such lost things I do not wish for google. I wish they all had a ringer, like mobiles, so that I could ring them to find where they are kept

[adya33]

Guess I can live without Google, mainly because now a days MSN & Yahoo have increased their index by a lot. However it might take some time to get used to.

[greatDrive]

Guys who had enough of google and want a new site to find things
try out http://beta.previewseek.com

I am sure you will definetly love it.
This site is definetly a good answer to google.

Cheers

[goldie_malhotra]

Originally Posted by Samurai

You kids! We programmers searched over Internet even before WWW came into existence. Ever heard of NNTP Usenet groups, which are being used even now for exchange of ideas.

BTW, I was a programmer years before I had access to email or Internet. Therefore, I don't believe software programming profession is depended on google. Besides, you can still use MSN search or yahoo search or even Usenet.

hahaha - even i remember scouting uunet groups or the irc for various valuable pieces of information - and it used to be a real revelation in those college days

but, what a long way we have come since then - and even i admit being addicted to google - though not completely dependent on it.

but you wont believe the amount of freshers we get nowadays who dont even know how to use google properly - it is one of the first things i ask them to pick up

[tifosikrishna]

Originally Posted by greatDrive

Guys who had enough of google and want a new site to find things
try out http://beta.previewseek.com

I am sure you will definetly love it.
This site is definetly a good answer to google.

Cheers

hi gD, its a great site man. i was able to download a song which i was searching for quite some time.

thanks.

guys, try this site. looks good.

[shuvc]

Originally Posted by Zappo

For such lost things I do not wish for google. I wish they all had a ringer, like mobiles, so that I could ring them to find where they are kept

At least you know where to find Google .. it won't get lost .. Imagine what would happen should you lose the master ringer !!

[ryder]

Since the past 4-5 yrs my job involves doing research on the net and if there was no google, my career might have taken a different path. Awesome search engine.

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Upside is that its a much faster way of writing code but the downside is that they still claim higher person hours of effort coz their managers think they are ACTUALLY writing the code

but for a smart manager, the one who brings a code ASAP, by hook or by crook, is the one to be encouraged. that's the whole point of reusabilty of code, right? where u can pick up standard dlls (or buy), and half or ur building bloacks are ready already.

now person hours of effort are hazy, but in a world where $s mean everything, does anybody care?


I don't.

Google or anything else, today's fast world has no other way of surviving than search engines.