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This is a good reminder not to build anything other than a prototype in a language that you're going to regret later.

by enduser 15y ago

tyree732 15y ago
I can't imagine that Facebook regretted PHP until it was too late for them to do anything about it.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
leftnode 15y ago
Facebook also has some unique traffic problems that almost no other startup is going to experience.
scotty79 15y ago
If they started with Python (or anything else) they would have ended up in the same place. They would end up writing their own compiler and VM because they want and they can. It's actually amazing that they didn't extend the language itself yet.
- kmavm 15y ago
  (I work on HHVM.) We've dipped our toes into the waters of changing the language a bit. Setting the Eval.EnableHipHopSyntax and Eval.EnableHipHopExperimentalSyntax flags in HipHop enables a few differences, the most notable of which is a Python-inspired 'yield' syntax for generators.
- wmf 15y ago
  If they started with Java they would have found that HotSpot isn't fast enough and written their own?
  - scotty79 15y ago
    It depends on how unsuitable hotspot vm would be for them. Google wrote their own vm because hotspot vm was highly unsuitable for android. I'd say that if Facebook was java based they'd have to stick with hotspot vm. Whether it's a good thing is a completely different story.
- ergo14 15y ago
  They would be sitting on JIT-ed pypy 1.7 at this point, which can yield over 10 times speedup in some cases- I've tested some of my own code. So having superior language with better out of the box speed in default implementation - I'd hardly call same place.
  - scotty79 15y ago
    ... or they would start their own project similar to Unladen Swallow. I think picking simple language like PHP makes it much easier to create your own fully custom stack once you need one. Ofcourse Facebook problems will never be your problems so every one should pick what is right for him at any given moment and stop dreming about (im)possible future.
    - ergo14 15y ago
      Actually I think it would be different case - they would probably not need to reimplement language in their own way - because speed benefits are already there (when it comes to pypy). Instead they would patch other libs to work with pypy on a need basis. Which seems way less work than start from scratch and implement whole lang - and community would benefit a lot from this too. But since it will not ever happen it's just speculation at this point.
cbo 15y ago
It's impossible to know what you'll need in the future. No one should be wasting too much time trying to figure it out. How could Zuckerberg -- or anyone, for that matter -- have predicted the kind of rampant success Facebook has had? Who thought in 2005 that Facebook would become the largest photo sharing site on the web? Or that they would need to handle almost 140 million unique visitors per month? If the largest problem of your business is your application stack, you are in a very good place. Most businesses have much larger problems like, say, cashflow.
- ryanwaggoner 15y ago
  almost 140 million unique visitors per month That seems low. According to http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics, it's 800m active users, more than 50% of which log in on any given day.

This is a good reminder not to build anything other than a prototype in a language that you're going to regret later.

by enduser 15y ago

This is a good reminder not to build anything other than a prototype in a language that you're going to regret later.

tyree732 15y ago

I can't imagine that Facebook regretted PHP until it was too late for them to do anything about it.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

leftnode 15y ago

Facebook also has some unique traffic problems that almost no other startup is going to experience.

scotty79 15y ago

If they started with Python (or anything else) they would have ended up in the same place. They would end up writing their own compiler and VM because they want and they can. It's actually amazing that they didn't extend the language itself yet.

kmavm 15y ago
(I work on HHVM.) We've dipped our toes into the waters of changing the language a bit. Setting the Eval.EnableHipHopSyntax and Eval.EnableHipHopExperimentalSyntax flags in HipHop enables a few differences, the most notable of which is a Python-inspired 'yield' syntax for generators.
wmf 15y ago
If they started with Java they would have found that HotSpot isn't fast enough and written their own?
- scotty79 15y ago
  It depends on how unsuitable hotspot vm would be for them. Google wrote their own vm because hotspot vm was highly unsuitable for android. I'd say that if Facebook was java based they'd have to stick with hotspot vm. Whether it's a good thing is a completely different story.
ergo14 15y ago
They would be sitting on JIT-ed pypy 1.7 at this point, which can yield over 10 times speedup in some cases- I've tested some of my own code. So having superior language with better out of the box speed in default implementation - I'd hardly call same place.
- scotty79 15y ago
  ... or they would start their own project similar to Unladen Swallow. I think picking simple language like PHP makes it much easier to create your own fully custom stack once you need one. Ofcourse Facebook problems will never be your problems so every one should pick what is right for him at any given moment and stop dreming about (im)possible future.
  - ergo14 15y ago
    Actually I think it would be different case - they would probably not need to reimplement language in their own way - because speed benefits are already there (when it comes to pypy). Instead they would patch other libs to work with pypy on a need basis. Which seems way less work than start from scratch and implement whole lang - and community would benefit a lot from this too. But since it will not ever happen it's just speculation at this point.

cbo 15y ago

It's impossible to know what you'll need in the future. No one should be wasting too much time trying to figure it out. How could Zuckerberg -- or anyone, for that matter -- have predicted the kind of rampant success Facebook has had? Who thought in 2005 that Facebook would become the largest photo sharing site on the web? Or that they would need to handle almost 140 million unique visitors per month? If the largest problem of your business is your application stack, you are in a very good place. Most businesses have much larger problems like, say, cashflow.

ryanwaggoner 15y ago
almost 140 million unique visitors per month That seems low. According to http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics, it's 800m active users, more than 50% of which log in on any given day.