[strlen]

Reading this article confirms my tremendous respect for Google for:

1) Creating a culture where writing unit tests, fixing bugs and the like are not viewed dirty work or an overhead, something that scientists (or even engineers) are above

2) At the mean time, being a place where creation of new technology (even if not strictly related to the primary product i.e., not just information retrieval algorithms) is not viewed as "academic" or a risk to be avoided at all costs.

There are companies which do (1) well and companies that do (2) well; they have created wealth and made products I enjoy and use. Only a handful managed to do both: they changed far more than their industry.

[Smerity]

I was spoiled as my internship January last year with Google was my first introduction to the world of corporate IT. Google as a culture really encourages engineers to follow best practices - "Testing on the Toilet"[1] was always a highlight.

As you say, the emphasis on unit tests is amazing and something not found in a lot of professional companies. When you tell someone you haven't committed your code yet because you're writing unit tests they don't tell you to hurry - it's not considered something you can rush.

Additionally some of the research that has come out of Google Research [2] is stunning and I suggest if people are interested they can keep tabs on new publications via their feed [3]. A lot of their tools and products really are pushing the boundaries of the field they're in, both in complexity and scale, so the "reports from the front line" offer a unique insight.

[1] - http://googletesting.blogspot.com/2008/08/tott-100-and-count... [2] - http://research.google.com/pubs/papers.html [3] - http://research.google.com/pubs/atom.xml