5 ms·

“Emoji composer is now at 100% on Twitter”

59 points by logic 10y ago

nateguchi 10y ago
Without the background story, it's hard to tell whether this is a ridiculous or justified amount of time. Does anyone know the full story?
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  Do you really need to know the full story? 3.5 years ago somebody started working on an emoji picker. Perhaps he was only working on it 1 day a month, but even if thats the case, there is even a wtf that a side project made it into the main release. How does somebody even stay interested and passionate about such a small piece of work for so long?
  - canttestthis 10y ago
    Uhh the full story is kinda really important here.
    - jay_kyburz 10y ago
      I dont know how "important" it is, but I'm sure interested!
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - lloeki 10y ago
    > How does somebody even stay interested and passionate about such a small piece of work for so long? He probably scratched his own itch.
- tangue 10y ago
  He said in a reply "I never said i was working on this full time, it was a hackweek project I've been working on at low priority" [0] https://twitter.com/tw/status/812221656005386240 https://twitter.com/tw/status/812221656005386240
  - jay_kyburz 10y ago
    Yeah but it's twitter, a massive organisation with lots of programmers. Did whoever is in charge of the product decide an emoji picker was required and commission it? Or did Tom just decide to do it for fun? Did it have anything to do with people leaving earlier this week :) (joke)
minimaxir 10y ago
This is likely getting upvoted because it shouldn't take that long to ship a damn emoji picker / this use of resources is why Twitter is in decline, etc. From a QA perspective, an emoji picker, with emoji searching and color setting, is tricker than it looks. For example, which emoji would you expect to see for a search query of "happy"? http://i.imgur.com/HU3sP7N.png http://i.imgur.com/HU3sP7N.png (Actually, why isn't the smiling cat a result for a "happy" query?)
- tlrobinson 10y ago
  3.5 years, though? FYI, I'm not sure if it's part of the standard, but you can easily get a list of keywords for the search feature you mentioned http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html (though it looks like Twitter is using a different/augmented set of keywords)
  - microtherion 10y ago
    "easily" if all you care about is English (unless I missed links to translations).
    - filterfish 10y ago
      (You didn't)
  - Manishearth 10y ago
    The dev clarified that this was a side project of theirs, which is why it took so long.
- uitgewis 10y ago
  I'm imagining a product owner and a bunch other stake holders sitting in a meeting room adding a bunch of keywords to each emoji. Or just copying a list from somewhere on the Internet and filtering it (my bet would be on this).
  - 10y ago
automatwon 10y ago
I empathize celebrating a work project accomplishment. On the other hand, I'm perplexed by the dilemma of tarnishing my company's image, given all it's recent tribulations, devaluing my equity as a result. Maybe I'm giving too much weight to single individual's effect on altering public opinion (stock price).
emsy 10y ago
Here's an interesting take on the development of Twitter by Jonathan Blow. https://youtu.be/k56wra39lwA?t=448 https://youtu.be/k56wra39lwA?t=448 I wondered about this before I saw this video as well. For all their dev capacity, Twitter is arguably a product with a lot of problems.
nichochar 10y ago
1. Shipping is good. 3,5 years may seem bad, but it's much better than never, which is probably what this guy is celebrating. Having worked in big tech companies, where you basically get nothing done because of broken process and politics, I get why he is happy about this 2. lol, 3,5 years is still ridiculously slow. Sure there can be technical difficulties, sure it can be a side project, but that's a really bloody long time, companies are built and make dozens of millions in that time. I could probably build a faster twitter with a good team in that time. It's hard to see which is the stance here, I'm happy for the guy for shipping, but it makes me kind of lol. Our industry is stupid sometimes.
runnr_az 10y ago
That's awesome... thanks to all who worked on it!

59 points by logic 10y ago

Without the background story, it's hard to tell whether this is a ridiculous or justified amount of time. Does anyone know the full story?

jay_kyburz 10y ago
Do you really need to know the full story? 3.5 years ago somebody started working on an emoji picker. Perhaps he was only working on it 1 day a month, but even if thats the case, there is even a wtf that a side project made it into the main release. How does somebody even stay interested and passionate about such a small piece of work for so long?
- canttestthis 10y ago
  Uhh the full story is kinda really important here.
  - jay_kyburz 10y ago
    I dont know how "important" it is, but I'm sure interested!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- lloeki 10y ago
  > How does somebody even stay interested and passionate about such a small piece of work for so long? He probably scratched his own itch.
tangue 10y ago
He said in a reply "I never said i was working on this full time, it was a hackweek project I've been working on at low priority" [0] https://twitter.com/tw/status/812221656005386240 https://twitter.com/tw/status/812221656005386240
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  Yeah but it's twitter, a massive organisation with lots of programmers. Did whoever is in charge of the product decide an emoji picker was required and commission it? Or did Tom just decide to do it for fun? Did it have anything to do with people leaving earlier this week :) (joke)

minimaxir 10y ago

This is likely getting upvoted because it shouldn't take that long to ship a damn emoji picker / this use of resources is why Twitter is in decline, etc. From a QA perspective, an emoji picker, with emoji searching and color setting, is tricker than it looks. For example, which emoji would you expect to see for a search query of "happy"? http://i.imgur.com/HU3sP7N.png http://i.imgur.com/HU3sP7N.png (Actually, why isn't the smiling cat a result for a "happy" query?)

tlrobinson 10y ago
3.5 years, though? FYI, I'm not sure if it's part of the standard, but you can easily get a list of keywords for the search feature you mentioned http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html (though it looks like Twitter is using a different/augmented set of keywords)
- microtherion 10y ago
  "easily" if all you care about is English (unless I missed links to translations).
  - filterfish 10y ago
    (You didn't)
- Manishearth 10y ago
  The dev clarified that this was a side project of theirs, which is why it took so long.
uitgewis 10y ago
I'm imagining a product owner and a bunch other stake holders sitting in a meeting room adding a bunch of keywords to each emoji. Or just copying a list from somewhere on the Internet and filtering it (my bet would be on this).
- 10y ago

automatwon 10y ago

I empathize celebrating a work project accomplishment. On the other hand, I'm perplexed by the dilemma of tarnishing my company's image, given all it's recent tribulations, devaluing my equity as a result. Maybe I'm giving too much weight to single individual's effect on altering public opinion (stock price).

emsy 10y ago

Here's an interesting take on the development of Twitter by Jonathan Blow. https://youtu.be/k56wra39lwA?t=448 https://youtu.be/k56wra39lwA?t=448 I wondered about this before I saw this video as well. For all their dev capacity, Twitter is arguably a product with a lot of problems.

nichochar 10y ago

1. Shipping is good. 3,5 years may seem bad, but it's much better than never, which is probably what this guy is celebrating. Having worked in big tech companies, where you basically get nothing done because of broken process and politics, I get why he is happy about this 2. lol, 3,5 years is still ridiculously slow. Sure there can be technical difficulties, sure it can be a side project, but that's a really bloody long time, companies are built and make dozens of millions in that time. I could probably build a faster twitter with a good team in that time. It's hard to see which is the stance here, I'm happy for the guy for shipping, but it makes me kind of lol. Our industry is stupid sometimes.

runnr_az 10y ago

That's awesome... thanks to all who worked on it!