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Typically though, FAANGs still solve their problems with boring technologies.

by nizmow 6y ago

usrusr 6y ago
They are big enough to follow all paths concurrently. The F is famously doing their own PHP and while the G was tickling "shiny receptors" all over the world with Go (which ironically could be seen as an example in boring technology enlightenment, considering how it is basically a modern take on 1980ies language features), they were also doing so much plain old java that the parts of the internal tooling they did for maintaining their own sanity published as Guava easily had more impact on the viability of java as a language than everything Oracle has ever released (yes, including Java 8 lambdas).
- kaba0 6y ago
  Your last point is just flat out false — even if sarcastic. Just to correct the misinformation, Java has been steadily improving since the Oracle years whether you like or hate oracle — the JVM is an absolute workhorse and new exciting features are underway.
stepbeek 6y ago
I was very disappointed when I joined Amazon to learn we were using plain old Java with servlets (this was 2015, I think kotlin is more common now). Since leaving I’m in awe of how sensible the technical decision making that led to that was.
- redisman 6y ago
  I interviewed with Stripe and one of the engineers mentioned they’re transitioning many services to a exciting new technology called... Java. That was in 2021
  - winrid 6y ago
    It seems like everyone in my current org is very against Java, somehow they'd rather build backend systems in JS. I'll never get it.
  - stepbeek 6y ago
    I will confess that I'd struggle to go back to java now. Kotlin has all the sensibility with just enough power to make me happy. I get to live in the JVM eco-system without the song-and-dance of something like scala.
jefftk 6y ago
Yes! I work at a FAANG and over my time here it's been C++, Java, Python, and JS. The least "boring tech" part of my work has probably been that were moving from JS to Typescript? Mostly, we want to use things that we're confident can do what we need, and that we're confident don't have hidden surprises.
dilyevsky 6y ago
Not true - they use cutting edge tech that sprawls around sfba a few years later all the time. Maybe not on the web side bc you aint gonna add much value by doing that anyway

Typically though, FAANGs still solve their problems with boring technologies.

by nizmow 6y ago

Typically though, FAANGs still solve their problems with boring technologies.

They are big enough to follow all paths concurrently. The F is famously doing their own PHP and while the G was tickling "shiny receptors" all over the world with Go (which ironically could be seen as an example in boring technology enlightenment, considering how it is basically a modern take on 1980ies language features), they were also doing so much plain old java that the parts of the internal tooling they did for maintaining their own sanity published as Guava easily had more impact on the viability of java as a language than everything Oracle has ever released (yes, including Java 8 lambdas).

kaba0 6y ago
Your last point is just flat out false — even if sarcastic. Just to correct the misinformation, Java has been steadily improving since the Oracle years whether you like or hate oracle — the JVM is an absolute workhorse and new exciting features are underway.

stepbeek 6y ago

I was very disappointed when I joined Amazon to learn we were using plain old Java with servlets (this was 2015, I think kotlin is more common now). Since leaving I’m in awe of how sensible the technical decision making that led to that was.

redisman 6y ago
I interviewed with Stripe and one of the engineers mentioned they’re transitioning many services to a exciting new technology called... Java. That was in 2021
- winrid 6y ago
  It seems like everyone in my current org is very against Java, somehow they'd rather build backend systems in JS. I'll never get it.
- stepbeek 6y ago
  I will confess that I'd struggle to go back to java now. Kotlin has all the sensibility with just enough power to make me happy. I get to live in the JVM eco-system without the song-and-dance of something like scala.

jefftk 6y ago

Yes! I work at a FAANG and over my time here it's been C++, Java, Python, and JS. The least "boring tech" part of my work has probably been that were moving from JS to Typescript? Mostly, we want to use things that we're confident can do what we need, and that we're confident don't have hidden surprises.

dilyevsky 6y ago

Not true - they use cutting edge tech that sprawls around sfba a few years later all the time. Maybe not on the web side bc you aint gonna add much value by doing that anyway