6 ms·

Twitter's high ROI engineering work

27 points by steviesands 4y ago

rideontime 4y ago
He really had no idea what he was buying, didn't he?
davydm 4y ago
funny how the argument that Elon knows nothing by bringing up RPCs is backed by (in part) a trace diagram showing RPC's all over the place. slow clap
- sn0w_crash 4y ago
  These people are really good at “dunking on you” on Twitter Upon closer inspection, they’re full of s*t
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  > Elon knows nothing by bringing up RPCs As best I understand the Twitter spat, he was claiming the client was making 1000 RPCs to generate the home timeline - hence it being slower in India where mobile internet is slower. Except the Android dev pointed out it was actually only 6 (IIRC) calls from the client and slowness had nothing to do with that.
  - tjchear 4y ago
    Didn't Elon clarify that he's referring to the RPCs between services in the BE?
    - guax 4y ago
      So there is a specific BE only for a region that is slow but another that is not?
    - zimpenfish 4y ago
      Possible he did, I suppose, but I never saw it in any of the recaps / threads. But also wouldn't make a lick of sense talking about India vs US for speed...
sn0w_crash 4y ago
The Twitter product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years. Revenue and user growth and product stagnated. So who cares about optimizing a further 100ms improvement or what OSS they maintained? The “interesting stuff” you see in this post is what many engineers love to do. Make work for the sake of work. It doesn’t always translate into growth.
- agentdrtran 4y ago
  > The Twitter product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years. In the last few years alone they made huge changes like Blue, reader mode, ad-free articles, super follows, birdwatch, spaces/ticketed spaces, the list goes on.
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    All under an FTC consent degree which required "that Twitter produce written privacy assessments of any new “product, service or practice” — or when Twitter updates those things — that could affect user data or put it at risk."[1] - not an environment where you can "move fast and break things"! [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/11/tech/musk-twitter-ftc/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/11/tech/musk-twitter-ftc/ind...
- usednet 4y ago
  > The Reddit product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years > The Apple product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years > The WhatsApp product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years
  - sn0w_crash 4y ago
    How are these good examples? Those product’s revenue streams and user bases have grown tremendously. Twitter’s workforce bloat has outpaced both its users, revenue, and its share price.

27 points by steviesands 4y ago

He really had no idea what he was buying, didn't he?

funny how the argument that Elon knows nothing by bringing up RPCs is backed by (in part) a trace diagram showing RPC's all over the place. slow clap

sn0w_crash 4y ago
These people are really good at “dunking on you” on Twitter Upon closer inspection, they’re full of s*t
zimpenfish 4y ago
> Elon knows nothing by bringing up RPCs As best I understand the Twitter spat, he was claiming the client was making 1000 RPCs to generate the home timeline - hence it being slower in India where mobile internet is slower. Except the Android dev pointed out it was actually only 6 (IIRC) calls from the client and slowness had nothing to do with that.
- tjchear 4y ago
  Didn't Elon clarify that he's referring to the RPCs between services in the BE?
  - guax 4y ago
    So there is a specific BE only for a region that is slow but another that is not?
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    Possible he did, I suppose, but I never saw it in any of the recaps / threads. But also wouldn't make a lick of sense talking about India vs US for speed...

sn0w_crash 4y ago

The Twitter product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years. Revenue and user growth and product stagnated. So who cares about optimizing a further 100ms improvement or what OSS they maintained? The “interesting stuff” you see in this post is what many engineers love to do. Make work for the sake of work. It doesn’t always translate into growth.

agentdrtran 4y ago
> The Twitter product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years. In the last few years alone they made huge changes like Blue, reader mode, ad-free articles, super follows, birdwatch, spaces/ticketed spaces, the list goes on.
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  All under an FTC consent degree which required "that Twitter produce written privacy assessments of any new “product, service or practice” — or when Twitter updates those things — that could affect user data or put it at risk."[1] - not an environment where you can "move fast and break things"! [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/11/tech/musk-twitter-ftc/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/11/tech/musk-twitter-ftc/ind...
usednet 4y ago
> The Reddit product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years > The Apple product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years > The WhatsApp product has not meaningfully changed or evolved in 10 years
- sn0w_crash 4y ago
  How are these good examples? Those product’s revenue streams and user bases have grown tremendously. Twitter’s workforce bloat has outpaced both its users, revenue, and its share price.