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> I like this part. As a developer I've often looked at the network usage of large websites / web applications and it's always surprising to me just how...unopt

> I like this part. As a developer I've often looked at the network usage of large websites / web applications and it's always surprising to me just how...unoptimized it is as far as network connections go. Have you considered that your opinion on the best way to serve data to a billion users might actually be wrong? That maybe Facebook actually knows what they are doing?

CrystalCuckoo 11y ago
This is the company that bragged about having 18,000 classes for their iOS app [1] and having to patch the Dalvik Virtual Machine to support new features in their Android app [2]; they are not infallible. [1] http://quellish.tumblr.com/post/126712999812/how-on-earth-the-facebook-ios-application-is-so http://quellish.tumblr.com/post/126712999812/how-on-earth-th... [2] https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-the-hood-dalvik-patch-for-facebook-for-android/10151345597798920/ https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-th...
- sbd01 11y ago
  IiRC they aso exploited an Android bug to give themselves more memory. Facebook is woefully buggy and slow that many people are now either using the website or alternative wrapper apps that don't drain their battery immensely.
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
> Have you considered that your opinion on the best way to serve data to a billion users might actually be wrong? That maybe Facebook actually knows what they are doing? Certainly! But I've also done work where Humvees in the middle of Iraq use satellite internet connectivity with massive latency and the more connections it has to open to get started the slower everything gets. Perhaps this is an advantage where latency is low so you can load parts of the page faster but I'd love to know some of the more technical reasons behind this!
- thewarrior 11y ago
  Lets get rid of the notion that Facebook doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.
  - adrianpike 11y ago
    "he"?
    - saryant 11y ago
      It's a not-very-funny attempt at a Rubio joke.
  - redthrowaway 11y ago
    I know it's a light-hearted post, but can we not?
jacobolus 11y ago
Facebook absolutely hammers client-side system resources. Opening a few Facebook tabs, especially in Chrome, will bring a new fancy computer to its knees, and closing Facebook (either the website or the mobile app) famously substantially extends laptop/phone battery life. Facebook’s site architecture demonstrates staggering lack of respect for their users, even without considering the privacy implications. Not really surprising, from what I’ve heard from friends about their cowboy-style internal engineering culture, and spaghetti piled on spaghetti internal code organization, where shipping new features ASAP is privileged above all other goals. When you have endless money to throw engineers and servers at a problem, it’s possible to kinda sorta paper over a lot of horrible broken design. Not sure whether that implies anything one way or another about whether or not they “know what they are doing”. It sort of depends on your definition of “know”. After all, their motto is “move fast and break things.”

CrystalCuckoo 11y ago

This is the company that bragged about having 18,000 classes for their iOS app [1] and having to patch the Dalvik Virtual Machine to support new features in their Android app [2]; they are not infallible. [1] http://quellish.tumblr.com/post/126712999812/how-on-earth-the-facebook-ios-application-is-so http://quellish.tumblr.com/post/126712999812/how-on-earth-th... [2] https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-the-hood-dalvik-patch-for-facebook-for-android/10151345597798920/ https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-th...

sbd01 11y ago
IiRC they aso exploited an Android bug to give themselves more memory. Facebook is woefully buggy and slow that many people are now either using the website or alternative wrapper apps that don't drain their battery immensely.

BinaryIdiot 11y ago

> Have you considered that your opinion on the best way to serve data to a billion users might actually be wrong? That maybe Facebook actually knows what they are doing? Certainly! But I've also done work where Humvees in the middle of Iraq use satellite internet connectivity with massive latency and the more connections it has to open to get started the slower everything gets. Perhaps this is an advantage where latency is low so you can load parts of the page faster but I'd love to know some of the more technical reasons behind this!

thewarrior 11y ago
Lets get rid of the notion that Facebook doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.
- adrianpike 11y ago
  "he"?
  - saryant 11y ago
    It's a not-very-funny attempt at a Rubio joke.
- redthrowaway 11y ago
  I know it's a light-hearted post, but can we not?

jacobolus 11y ago

Facebook absolutely hammers client-side system resources. Opening a few Facebook tabs, especially in Chrome, will bring a new fancy computer to its knees, and closing Facebook (either the website or the mobile app) famously substantially extends laptop/phone battery life. Facebook’s site architecture demonstrates staggering lack of respect for their users, even without considering the privacy implications. Not really surprising, from what I’ve heard from friends about their cowboy-style internal engineering culture, and spaghetti piled on spaghetti internal code organization, where shipping new features ASAP is privileged above all other goals. When you have endless money to throw engineers and servers at a problem, it’s possible to kinda sorta paper over a lot of horrible broken design. Not sure whether that implies anything one way or another about whether or not they “know what they are doing”. It sort of depends on your definition of “know”. After all, their motto is “move fast and break things.”