Anthony B,
Something else I should talk about sometime is Google Wave. As a product, it failed and deserved to, and I can talk about why that happened without risking defo. As a *project* tho? Wave was a huge success and much of what you use today is based on things that was initially in Wave.
Mar 12, 2024 at 12:51pmTusky
Show threadAnthony B,Mar 12, 2024
At the bare minimum, multiple people editing a document and seeing the edits each are doing in real time? Wave. Commenting/suggested edits? Wave.
Real time spelling suggestions? Again, Wave. Go back and watch the Google IO video which was the launch of Wave. And all of this was so far ahead of what was the state of the art at the time.
Show threadAnthony B,Mar 12, 2024

Google docs rushed out the same OT stuff after the Wave launch and went "oh we were already working on that"

doubt.gif

Show threadAnthony B,Mar 12, 2024
The Chrome v8 team were having to work out how to deal with the 30MB or so of JS that was GWT from the Java source.
Show threadAnthony B,Mar 12, 2024
Before Wave, if two people were editing a Google doc, you'd have to constantly hit refresh to see each others edits.
Show threadAnthony B,Mar 12, 2024

As I said, as a product, Wave failed. As a project? https://youtu.be/Y6ljFaKRTrI?si=LSm6RbTEVO-Zr8u_

Ok not still alive, i deleted the wave codebase as the remaining person at Google who had permissions to do so.

Portal - 'Still Alive'

YouTube
Show threadAnthony B,Mar 12, 2024
But so much of what you assume is the way the web is was originally from Wave.
Show threadAnthony B,Mar 12, 2024
I still have my Wave team T-shirt
Show threadPaul EvansMar 13, 2024

@swearyanthony Do you remember where you were when Wave got shut down?

I do. I was in the Google office, shutting down Wave.

Show threadAbraxas3d W5NYVMar 12, 2024
@swearyanthony I look forward to hearing more about this. I agree with your take.
Show threadAnthony B,Mar 12, 2024
@abraxas3d so much of what is considered normal today, back when Wave launched in like 2010 or so was seriously spooky magic like a web browser can *do* that?
Show threadSinjoMar 12, 2024
@swearyanthony Out of interest, were the EtherPad people involved? I remember them having something that felt way ahead of Docs at the time and I assumed their tech ended up in Docs via the acquisition.