LAURENCE MORONEY: On this episode
of "Coffee with a Googler," I'm chatting
with Will French, who works on Google Developer Docs for Maps.
He'll tell us all about it and stay tuned
for his superhero origin story.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So Will, you're a tech writer here at Google,
and I understand writing technical documentation
at Google, it's a pretty complex process, right?
WILLIAM FRENCH: It is.
A lot goes into documenting Google APIs.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So it's like--
I mean, we have thousands of products
and many pages for them.
How do you manage the whole thing?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Well, we use the same source control systems
as other Google products.
So the same types of tools that engineers use,
technical writers use to create and maintain
technical documentation.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So if you're writing a doc,
it's almost like writing source code
that gets compiled in and--
WILLIAM FRENCH: Yeah, it's very-- very much so.
In fact, we actually do even write some code
as tech writers.
LAURENCE MORONEY: You write code?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Yeah.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
What's the last piece of code that you've worked on?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Let's see, I did a sample
to demonstrate some new API features.
A lot of the time, tech writing samples
won't actually be published.
Sometimes they are, but most of the time,
we just use them to make sure everything works.
LAURENCE MORONEY: And really makes the docs authentic
if there's good samples in there.
WILLIAM FRENCH: Yeah, it gives us
an in to even find problems with code and things like that.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Now, you work on the Google Maps
platform, right?
WILLIAM FRENCH: That's right, Maps and Places APIs.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So what kind of stuff do you do with that?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Well, I write and maintain documentation
for the Maps iOS APIs, and I'm responsible for all
of the Places APIs documentation.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Wow, iOS APIs, that's like--
how is-- how is that to work with, like with Google Maps?
WILLIAM FRENCH: That was a bit of a learning curve,
but it's actually a lot of fun to work with.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Now, even though like--
you and I have worked on GEO stuff
and I do GEO outreach myself.
And most of the team is based overseas
and that kind of thing.
But you're based here in Kirkland.
And what's it like being a Googler in Kirkland?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Kirkland is a wonderful facility.
It's even got a bike trail running right through it.
So as a cyclist, I really appreciate that.
LAURENCE MORONEY: I hear you've had some fun
adventures while you're biking.
Could you tell us about some of them?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Well, you're probably
referring to the bat incident.
LAURENCE MORONEY: The bat incident, yes.
So tell the viewers about that.
WILLIAM FRENCH: Oh, well, a couple of years
ago, I was cycling on the Burke-Gilman Trail in Seattle.
And I had an encounter with a flying bat.
It was flying somewhere in the middle of the afternoon,
so he probably shouldn't have been out.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Maybe it was a blind bat.
No, wait, they're all blind.
WILLIAM FRENCH: Well, I collided with him.
And in the process of moving him out of the road, I was bitten.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So you've been bitten by a bat?
WILLIAM FRENCH: I have.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So this sounds like a comic book superhero
origin story.
WILLIAM FRENCH: Sort of, except I'm still waiting
for my superpowers to arrive.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Have any of them--
do you get sonar and that kind of stuff working?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Well, I have an aversion to emergency rooms.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Ladies and gentlemen, we
have Batman with us.
So back to tech writing and back to Maps and that kind of thing
then, I understand that you work a lot with the Solutions.
So could you tell us a little bit about Solutions
and what they do?
What good are they for developers?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Well, GEO Solutions
are like standard tutorials and documentation,
and it sort of takes it a step above
and makes a more comprehensive offering.
So rather than just demonstrating
how to put a marker on a map, we'll show you that.
We'll show you how to style the markers on the map.
We'll show you how to build a back end to serve data to.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So one of them is a store locator, right?
So if I own a chain of stores, you'll
basically give me everything that I
need to be able to build a mapping solution around that?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Yeah, the store locator solution, it
has a few different flavors, actually.
And we've got a simple store locator, which is all
based on JavaScript, and it takes
a set, a hard coded set of coordinates, and displays them
on a map and demonstrates styling the markers
and how to add an info window with custom data.
We've got a slightly more involved version
of that called the New York City Subway
Locator, which also involves marker clustering and view
bounding.
So it's got some open source libraries in there
that it uses for that.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Marker clustering
is a really cool technology, right?
If you've ever had a map, and, you look at it from the outside
and if you're trying to show subway stations in New York
City, for example, there's just too many pins,
and you can't see any of the city.
But clustering solves that?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Clustering solves that problem, yeah.
And there's-- basically what it does is it breaks down pins
so that if there's a certain number of them,
they get condensed into one large pin.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Right, and then it's like a number--
WILLIAM FRENCH: And then expands into individual pins.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So that's perfect for something
like the New York subway.
How many stations do you know?
WILLIAM FRENCH: I don't know offhand.
LAURENCE MORONEY: There's hundreds, though, right?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Yeah, the GEO JSON data is actually
pretty interesting to look at.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So is that how you drive it?
So GEO JSON data gives you the locations of these pins,
and then you cluster that?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Yeah, for the purposes of that demo,
the data was taken from the actual New York City subway
organization.
So that's available online, and it's in GEO JSON format.
So with that, there's a lot of stuff
that developers can do using GEO JSON.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Nice.
And then the code that's part of the solution is also
showing you how to parse GEO JSON, right?
WILLIAM FRENCH: That's right.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Which is a useful tool in and of itself.
WILLIAM FRENCH: Yes.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So if I'm building something-- like,
I don't own anything as big as the New York subway.
But if I'm building something like--
I don't know, if I have a chain of small bakeries
or something along those lines, the solution will guide me
in how I can have my bakeries plotted,
how those plots can be styled, popups, that kind of thing?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Yeah, the solution
shows a baseline implementation that developers can then
expand and customize.
So the code is all there for--
free for the taking
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK, cool.
And I believe there are code labs as well that'll
teach me how to do this stuff?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Yes, a number of the solutions
also include code labs, which are a longer,
more involved walk-through, sort of a step-by-step tutorial.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
Now, if you were to build one of these yourself, how would
you get started?
WILLIAM FRENCH: If I was going to create
a new solution from scratch?
LAURENCE MORONEY: No.
I mean, like, if you had a chain of bookstores or something
like that that you wanted to plot, how would you
get started with a solution?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Well, for these ones,
I would simply go out to the GitHub repo
and clone the repo for the solution that I want to use.
So all of the code is available on GitHub for these.
I can go out and get it.
I can run it.
I can get an API key and deploy it myself.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So if I want to build my own solution
to find all the bats in Seattle that might bite me,
where would I go to get started?
WILLIAM FRENCH: Well you would go to developers.googl
e.com/maps/solutions.
LAURENCE MORONEY: And we'll see all your hard work there?
WILLIAM FRENCH: That's right.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
So thanks very much, Will.
I've learned so much in this episode.
And thanks, everybody, for watching this far.
For the links to the solutions that we spoke about,
and there are other solutions too,
just take a look in the description below.
And I'd love to see what kind of things
you're going to build on Google Maps.
Thank you very much.
And thanks again, Will.
WILLIAM FRENCH: Thank you.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Watch out for the bats.