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If Twitter has a sane architecture and all indications is that it does now, creating a new feature shouldn’t require back end refactoring. You have core shar

If Twitter has a sane architecture and all indications is that it does now, creating a new feature shouldn’t require back end refactoring. You have core shared services and you build another service on top of it. I know how at least one of the newer services work at AWS and how many existing back end existing services it depends on and that if anyone outside of AWS had the resources, they could build it themselves by calling publicly available APIs. I seriously doubt Twitter is one large monolithic app And let’s not pretend that Google for instance is any better at product development. It’s failed at everything it’s done not related to advertising - ie Stadia. It’s one success hides a lot of failures.

hayst4ck 4y ago
https://thenewstack.io/how-airbnb-and-twitter-cut-back-on-microservice-complexities/ https://thenewstack.io/how-airbnb-and-twitter-cut-back-on-mi... > Originally, Twitter ran their public APIs through a single Ruby-on-Rails application (“Monorail”), which had grown into one of the largest Rails codebases in the world. And so it was increasingly difficult to update. By 2014, Twitter went the route of microservices, migrating the API service to a set of 14 microservices, running on an internal Java Virtual Machine (JVM)-based framework (“Maccaws”). > “While the microservices approach enabled increased development speeds at first it also resulted in a scattered and disjointed Twitter API,” Cosenza said. Independent teams designed and built endpoints for their specific use cases with little coordination. This led to fragmentation and, inevitably, a slowing of developer productivity. Microservices don't make a lot of sense to me unless you can print money or have a public infra offering. It points to an engineering org that doesn't know what they are doing. Turning O(N) code complexity (virtual complexity) into O(N) operational complexity ("physical" complexity) points to an org that doesn't understand where their complexity is coming from or how to minimize it. > creating a new feature shouldn’t require back end refactoring. The argument I was making is that it doesn't matter if it gets better. Once momentum is stopped by poor architecture, inertia is too high to get moving again. > I know how at least one of the newer services work at AWS and how many existing back end existing services it depends on and that if anyone outside of AWS had the resources, they could build it themselves by calling publicly available APIs. Yes they product-ized their services which is absolutely brilliant. I think the fact that amazon can print money plays a very key roll in why they won while other companies lost. They scaled early in the game rather than scaling too late and reaped incredible rewards for doing so. > And let’s not pretend that Google for instance is any better at product development. Google is famous for developers "just shuffling protobufs between services." While it's generally said derogatorily, that means that developers are generally not in the weeds and minutiae of what they are trying to accomplish, but are actually working on the higher level concept they are trying to achieve. > It’s failed at everything it’s done not related to advertising gsuite, maps, search, adsense, analystics, gcp, youtube, play, android, pixel, chromebook, news, docs, project zero, etc. I don't agree that failure is the rule. Cutting lackluster offerings rather than pouring investment in them shows at the very least a sane short term strategy with the weakness of potential harm for long term consumer trust. That's a reasonable trade off to make with good arguments for both sides.
- scarface74 4y ago
  > Microservices don't make a lot of sense to me unless you can print money or have a public infra offering. It points to an engineering org that doesn't know what they are doing A little company I’m sure you have heard of may disagree. This was way before AWS was thing and was an edict for Amazon Retail https://nordicapis.com/the-bezos-api-mandate-amazons-manifesto-for-externalization/ https://nordicapis.com/the-bezos-api-mandate-amazons-manifes... Your information about Twitters current architecture is way out of date. https://thenewstack.io/how-airbnb-and-twitter-cut-back-on-microservice-complexities/ https://thenewstack.io/how-airbnb-and-twitter-cut-back-on-mi... https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-technical-limits-that-Twitter-reached-with-Ruby-on-Rails https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-technical-limits-that-Tw... > Yes they product-ized their services which is absolutely brilliant. I think the fact that amazon can print money plays a very key roll in why they won while other companies lost. They scaled early in the game rather than scaling too late and reaped incredible rewards for doing so. That’s not the point. The point is that new internal initiative don’t start from a blank slate at any large tech company. There is already infrastructure in place to build on top of even when that underlying infrastructure isn’t publicly available. > gsuite, maps, search, adsense, analystics, gcp, youtube, play, android, pixel, chromebook, news, docs, project zero, etc. - gcp - losing money - addsense - more ads - GSuite - a distant second to MS https://www.saasgenius.com/blog/why-office-365-is-overtaking-google-apps-market-share/ https://www.saasgenius.com/blog/why-office-365-is-overtaking... - Android: it came out in the Oracle trial that Google only made $27 Billion in total during the first six years. Google gives Apple 18 billion a year to be the default search engine on iOS. Apple makes more money from Google in mobile than Google makes from Android - Pixel: depending on who you believe, Google sells 1.2 million phones a quarter. If it were a separate company, it would be an abysmal failure https://www.engadget.com/google-pixel-q4-2021-best-sales-quarter-ever-222820731.html https://www.engadget.com/google-pixel-q4-2021-best-sales-qua... That’s about the same number Apple sells in 2 days in a down quarter. YouTube: while YouTube contributes 10% to Google’s revenue, most think it’s still not profitable once you take into account bandwidth, storage, and revenue share with creators. Project Zero is not a profitable product - nor was it meant to be.
  - hayst4ck 4y ago

hayst4ck 4y ago

https://thenewstack.io/how-airbnb-and-twitter-cut-back-on-microservice-complexities/ https://thenewstack.io/how-airbnb-and-twitter-cut-back-on-mi... > Originally, Twitter ran their public APIs through a single Ruby-on-Rails application (“Monorail”), which had grown into one of the largest Rails codebases in the world. And so it was increasingly difficult to update. By 2014, Twitter went the route of microservices, migrating the API service to a set of 14 microservices, running on an internal Java Virtual Machine (JVM)-based framework (“Maccaws”). > “While the microservices approach enabled increased development speeds at first it also resulted in a scattered and disjointed Twitter API,” Cosenza said. Independent teams designed and built endpoints for their specific use cases with little coordination. This led to fragmentation and, inevitably, a slowing of developer productivity. Microservices don't make a lot of sense to me unless you can print money or have a public infra offering. It points to an engineering org that doesn't know what they are doing. Turning O(N) code complexity (virtual complexity) into O(N) operational complexity ("physical" complexity) points to an org that doesn't understand where their complexity is coming from or how to minimize it. > creating a new feature shouldn’t require back end refactoring. The argument I was making is that it doesn't matter if it gets better. Once momentum is stopped by poor architecture, inertia is too high to get moving again. > I know how at least one of the newer services work at AWS and how many existing back end existing services it depends on and that if anyone outside of AWS had the resources, they could build it themselves by calling publicly available APIs. Yes they product-ized their services which is absolutely brilliant. I think the fact that amazon can print money plays a very key roll in why they won while other companies lost. They scaled early in the game rather than scaling too late and reaped incredible rewards for doing so. > And let’s not pretend that Google for instance is any better at product development. Google is famous for developers "just shuffling protobufs between services." While it's generally said derogatorily, that means that developers are generally not in the weeds and minutiae of what they are trying to accomplish, but are actually working on the higher level concept they are trying to achieve. > It’s failed at everything it’s done not related to advertising gsuite, maps, search, adsense, analystics, gcp, youtube, play, android, pixel, chromebook, news, docs, project zero, etc. I don't agree that failure is the rule. Cutting lackluster offerings rather than pouring investment in them shows at the very least a sane short term strategy with the weakness of potential harm for long term consumer trust. That's a reasonable trade off to make with good arguments for both sides.

scarface74 4y ago
> Microservices don't make a lot of sense to me unless you can print money or have a public infra offering. It points to an engineering org that doesn't know what they are doing A little company I’m sure you have heard of may disagree. This was way before AWS was thing and was an edict for Amazon Retail https://nordicapis.com/the-bezos-api-mandate-amazons-manifesto-for-externalization/ https://nordicapis.com/the-bezos-api-mandate-amazons-manifes... Your information about Twitters current architecture is way out of date. https://thenewstack.io/how-airbnb-and-twitter-cut-back-on-microservice-complexities/ https://thenewstack.io/how-airbnb-and-twitter-cut-back-on-mi... https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-technical-limits-that-Twitter-reached-with-Ruby-on-Rails https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-technical-limits-that-Tw... > Yes they product-ized their services which is absolutely brilliant. I think the fact that amazon can print money plays a very key roll in why they won while other companies lost. They scaled early in the game rather than scaling too late and reaped incredible rewards for doing so. That’s not the point. The point is that new internal initiative don’t start from a blank slate at any large tech company. There is already infrastructure in place to build on top of even when that underlying infrastructure isn’t publicly available. > gsuite, maps, search, adsense, analystics, gcp, youtube, play, android, pixel, chromebook, news, docs, project zero, etc. - gcp - losing money - addsense - more ads - GSuite - a distant second to MS https://www.saasgenius.com/blog/why-office-365-is-overtaking-google-apps-market-share/ https://www.saasgenius.com/blog/why-office-365-is-overtaking... - Android: it came out in the Oracle trial that Google only made $27 Billion in total during the first six years. Google gives Apple 18 billion a year to be the default search engine on iOS. Apple makes more money from Google in mobile than Google makes from Android - Pixel: depending on who you believe, Google sells 1.2 million phones a quarter. If it were a separate company, it would be an abysmal failure https://www.engadget.com/google-pixel-q4-2021-best-sales-quarter-ever-222820731.html https://www.engadget.com/google-pixel-q4-2021-best-sales-qua... That’s about the same number Apple sells in 2 days in a down quarter. YouTube: while YouTube contributes 10% to Google’s revenue, most think it’s still not profitable once you take into account bandwidth, storage, and revenue share with creators. Project Zero is not a profitable product - nor was it meant to be.
- hayst4ck 4y ago