
Google Translator Toolkit is shutting down - amq
https://support.google.com/translatortoolkit/answer/9462068?hl=en
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protomyth
This is the natural progression of a culture that values the new toy over
maintenance. It shows in the lack of support and inability to find any human
support at all. If your entire success is the next thing or the big swing,
there is really no incentive to maintain anything unless its absolutely
necessary.

I love the fact that its so easy in computer work, compared to other
professions that have to deal with actual physical things, to build whole new
things. On the other hand, I hate the attitude it brings to maintenance and
customer service. We are the profession of throw-away cities.

~~~
FussyZeus
You know you would think they would at least slow down on sunsetting services
as they're releasing Stadia to a chorus of "How long until they kill this?"

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username90
I think many people overestimate how large the teams who are behind most of
Google's products. You have a few large ones like search, ads or cloud, but
many of the smaller ones are just a few dozens who over the years dwindle down
to just a handful as people realize it is a dead end project. At some point
the team is not longer big enough to maintain the project and it gets shut
down.

~~~
lykr0n
Sounds like a management/culture issue. That's not an excuse to not cycle in
new staff and people move around.

~~~
username90
Managers are just employees as well who also pick projects that will benefit
their careers. Why work on a small thing with a few million users where you
will never get promoted since you are already at the top, when you could just
move to the next growth ship where lots of people are hired so moving up the
ranks as a manager happens naturally? To me it seems like this culture seems
to go all the way to the top. It is not like Sundar got promoted so quickly
due to his work on an obscure product.

~~~
jedberg
> Why work on a small thing with a few million users where you will never get
> promoted

That's the management problem right there. You _should_ be able to get
promotions for maintaining/improving a small product. The fact that you can't
is what causes this endless shutdown mentality.

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junar
Posted 2 months ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21026456](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21026456)

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lawrenceyan
This is sort of misleading since it's really just them deprecating things to
organize and keep things tidy. You still have access to everything through
Google Translate.

~~~
amq
Does Translate offer the Toolkit functionality? Just checked, but couldn't
find anything beyond the usual text or document translation box.

~~~
excursionist
I believe google translate offers pretty much all of the toolkit functionality
(and more), but packaged in a different way. Take a look at the google
translate advanced docs:

[https://cloud.google.com/translate/docs/advanced/glossary](https://cloud.google.com/translate/docs/advanced/glossary)

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coding123
Not much of a news item. They are not shutting down google translate.

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UI_at_80x24
This horse has been beaten to death, repeatedly now.

Trust that Google's "don't be evil" was earnest has evaporated. *

Belief that product/services from Google are anything more then ephemeral has
gone up in smoke.

Promises that hardware would be supported and provide a baseline for the
future are nothing more then delusional and wispy.

This is what we get when we have faith in a cloud.

 __edited and updated. Thanks for the correction.

~~~
davidcbc
If you're gonna beat a dead horse at least get the motto right. It was "Don't
be evil" not "Do no evil"

~~~
riku_iki
> It was

It is still there:

"And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t
right – speak up!"

[https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-
conduct/](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/)

