[throwGuardian]

Remote work now is likely lower in productivity than normal-times WFH. If a software company cannot adjust to remote delivery, albeit at lower than normal productivity, the rest of the economy has no hope.

I don't understand Google's decision here - I wish they simply predicted a longer than normal release cadence, versus none at all

[londons_explore]

Perhaps because some testing needs to be done on physical devices in a real lab?

"Please test this build of Chrome on these 1000 various models of android phones" sounds kinda hard to automate.

Even if you had automated it, you'd probably still need someone in the office to poke hardware that locked up, etc.

[Symbiote]

I don't know what Google use, but a friend worked on a system some years ago that used a robotic "finger" to press on a phone touchscreen, for testing. This was for a mobile phone company (pre-Android/iPhone) to check their OS worked.

I wouldn't be surprised if even the best of those systems requires some human supervision.

[kube-system]

They already have that problem solved:

https://firebase.google.com/docs/test-lab/

As do many others:

https://aws.amazon.com/device-farm/

https://appcenter.ms/

https://kobiton.com/

https://www.perfecto.io/

https://saucelabs.com/solutions/live-testing

[munificent]

> I don't understand Google's decision here - I wish they simply predicted a longer than normal release cadence, versus none at all

It's reasonable to not understand their decision, but it's also reasonable to give them the benefit of the doubt that they know what's best for their team and product (and in that order).

Googlers (like myself) are probably the least materially affected by COVID-19. We are well compensated and most aren't living paycheck to paycheck. We have great medical benefits. Our schedules are flexible and working from home is fairly feasible for most teams. Many are young enough to not have kids, or compensated well-enough to have a stay-at-home partner.

And technically, for many of us, working from home is fairly straightforward. Google already has much of that infrastructure in place. Many teams are already distributed across sites and used to working over email and VC. We all have laptops, etc. Some of us work on open source where it's trivial to have full access to source code when not on the corporate network.

Even so, my rough estimate is that my team is about 30% less effective right now. Like you say, it's not because working from home is hard. It's because staying focused on code during a global pandemic that will kill unknown people, is causing massive suffering for people who aren't as fortunate as we Googlers, and may lead to a depression the likes of which haven't been seen in a hundred years is really hard.

We're all trying to survive a monumentally catastrophic event with our health and wits intact the best way we know how. The history books are going to write about how millions low-risk young people self-quarantined to protect the older generation. They will remember the states and countries that suspended evictions and mortgages.

No one's going to give a damn that Chrome skipped a release or two. At the scale of shit the world is dealing with right now, it just doesn't matter.

[throwGuardian]

> At the scale of shit the world is dealing with right now, it just doesn't matter.

There are different ways to cope with adversity. The "Keep calm and carry on" method is a contrasting formula, which applied to Chrome, would see maybe one release versus three or four, even in the midst of an adversity.

As much ubiquitous suffering as there is currently, the comfort of at least a (slower than usual) browser release can be a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak horizon. Heck, if my browser won't even update, forget fixing a massively multivariate system/problem like public health, or the economy.

Your/Google's self awareness of privilege is much appreciated. But if you really want to make a difference, a slower release cadence is much more uplifting than resigning to the virus.

[eyelidlessness]

They're also considering the impact on developers targeting Chrome and Chrome OS platforms[1], which is a welcome consideration.

Edit to add: this also has a follow-on effect of reducing the possibility that end users experience problems due to breaking changes or bugs, which is also important considering nearly everyone is depending on the internet at this time.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22620254

[throwGuardian]

I don't understand. Regardless of COVID, they always need to consider the impact on developers.

Like I said in my previous comment, the newly remote Chrome team may be facing many unseen roadblocks, but I expect that to be a temporal window of delay, after which the team should resume shipping, albeit at a slower cadence due to reduced productivity compared to normal-times WFH.

[kinlan]

We always consider the needs of developers, but we also tend to ask a lot of them (new perf, security, capabilities etc etc) in more normal situations, but I'd add this is a highented situation for all users and develers where everyone is requiring information and access to services like never before it makes sense to be very prudent in all of our rollouts.

Whilst I love NFC API, it's not critical at this moment where as ensure there are no (or as rew as possible) regressions is.

Wrapping up, it's a massive mix of needs right now from our own teams and users alike.

[eyelidlessness]

I want to say that I appreciate your team's decision and I especially appreciate your personal effort to answer questions here in public. I'm sure it's frustrating when people second guess important decisions during a stressful time. Just want you to know I (and I'm sure many others) see your effort and appreciate it.

[eyelidlessness]

> I don't understand. Regardless of COVID, they always need to consider the impact on developers.

Sure, but that impact might be somewhat more... impactful right now. This isn't that difficult. If you're a FB user, you probably saw last night nearly all of your friends reporting that their posts were being flagged as spam yesterday. That's because a bunch of people were sent home and the automated system took over. Staffs are being sent home and their ability to work effectively is reduced. The prospect of breaking changes and new bugs in the world's most popular web browser could put more strain on already strained teams that are struggling to keep up with both their current working environment and new challenges as they respond to the public health crisis. Removing that as a factor is a net benefit for those teams and for all of their users.

[uwuhn]

My ideal mix is either 80/20 or 60/40 remote/in-office. I have been 20/80 my entire career up to the CV outbreak (1 day WFH minimum every week).

I prefer 100% WFH to that, but I dislike not going to the office at all. This is my first time being 100% WFH for this long -- my previous max was a full week.