3 ms·

> But then there’s the reality that YouTube was written in Python. Instagram is a Django app. Pinterest serves 450M monthly users as a Python app. As far as I k

> But then there’s the reality that YouTube was written in Python. Instagram is a Django app. Pinterest serves 450M monthly users as a Python app. As far as I know Python was a key language for the backend of some other huge web scale products like Lyft, Uber, and Robinhood. All those namedrops mean and matter nothing. Hacking together proof of concepts is a time honoured tradition, as is pushing to production hacky code that's badly stiched up. Who knows if there was any technical analysis to pick Python over any alternative? Who knows how much additional engineering work and additional resources was required to keep that Python code from breaking apart in production? I mean, Python always figured very low in webapp framework benchmarks. Did that changed just because <trendy company> claims it used Python? Also serving a lot of monthly users says nothing about a tech stack. It says a lot about the engineering that went into developing the platform. If a webapp is architected so that it can scale well to meet it's real world demand, even after paying a premium for the poor choice of tech stack some guy who is no longer around made in the past for god knows what reason, what would that say about the tech stack?

tempnow987 4y ago
"All those namedrops mean and matter nothing" If your goal is to actually ship product then this matters a lot. Many of us have dealt with folks spinning endlesslessly on "technical analysis" when just moving forward with something like python would be fine. Facebook is PHP. I'm actually cautious now when folks are focused too much on the tech and tech analysis instead of product / users / client need.
travisjungroth 4y ago
> All those namedrops mean and matter nothing. ... Who knows if there was any technical analysis to pick Python over any alternative? Why look at results when you can look at analysis!
- arinlen 4y ago
  > Why look at results when you can look at analysis! The problem with this mindless cargo culting around frameworks and tech stacks is that these cultists look at business results and somehow believe that they have anything to do with arbitrary choices regarding tech stacks. It's like these guys look at professional athletes winning, and process to claim the wins are due to the brand of shoes they are using, even though the athlete had no say about the choice and was forced to wear what was handed over to him.

tempnow987 4y ago

"All those namedrops mean and matter nothing" If your goal is to actually ship product then this matters a lot. Many of us have dealt with folks spinning endlesslessly on "technical analysis" when just moving forward with something like python would be fine. Facebook is PHP. I'm actually cautious now when folks are focused too much on the tech and tech analysis instead of product / users / client need.

travisjungroth 4y ago

> All those namedrops mean and matter nothing. ... Who knows if there was any technical analysis to pick Python over any alternative? Why look at results when you can look at analysis!

arinlen 4y ago
> Why look at results when you can look at analysis! The problem with this mindless cargo culting around frameworks and tech stacks is that these cultists look at business results and somehow believe that they have anything to do with arbitrary choices regarding tech stacks. It's like these guys look at professional athletes winning, and process to claim the wins are due to the brand of shoes they are using, even though the athlete had no say about the choice and was forced to wear what was handed over to him.