[fnordpiglet]

Source code isn’t written afresh every day. The point was the code was written at a different era and the current era wouldn’t produce this sort of code, and presumably you wouldn’t see anything but a generic 500. This is likely because product managers can’t stand free thought and action amongst engineers as it doesn’t appease their bean counter overlords sufficiently.

[hnlmorg]

You don’t know when that was written.

[kartoffelsaft]

It had been written by (at the latest) September 2008:

https://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/09/best-gmail-error-m...

[JadeNB]

Wow, seeing someone (presumably) unironically saying "This is why we love Google" was definitely a throwback to an earlier time. https://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/09/best-gmail-error-m...

[furyofantares]

I definitely still loved Google in 2008.

[fnordpiglet]

That’s pretty presumptuous, but especially so when there are comments parallel from googlers pinning the date and it’s easily determined by using this very powerful information retrieval tool called “Google.” Not to mention the possibility I work at Google, or that I wrote it myself!

[jabjq]

If you use Google to find this string you will find very old references. (“Very old” is relative)