3 ms·

Hard problems, they are hard. “I can build a twitter clone in a weekend” is famous for a reason.

• scarface74 4y ago
  Of course any senior dev can. Isn’t being able to design Twitter a prerequisite to passing a System Design interview at any BigTech company? Edit: I was being sarcastic. I meant to add /s
  • darkwizard42 4y ago
    I think what the parent comment is talking about and what you might have missed out on (though maybe your remark is tongue in cheek as well) is the challenge isn't building something with Twitter's functionality, but building something with its feature fit, timing, and growth. The core platform (while impressive engineering helps keep it running) is a fairly rudimentary idea, but execution is always a totally different story.
    • scarface74 4y ago
      I forgot to add the /s
    • toomanyrichies 4y ago
      You were probably including the following in your meaning for "feature fit, timing, and growth", but just to echo / amplify your comment: two extremely difficult things in building a community of Twitter's size (neither of which are technical / implementation in nature) are a) achieving network effects [1], and b) solving the Eternal September problem [2]. Both these hurdles are much more strategic than technical in nature. Andrew Chen's "The Cold Start Problem" goes into some fascinating detail about this [3]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September 3. https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Start-Problem-Andrew-Chen/dp/0062969749 https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Start-Problem-Andrew-Chen/dp/006...