5 ms·

Twitter engineer explains how it will break in the coming weeks

30 points by sprague 4y ago

sprague 4y ago
Two weeks since this piece was posted. I wonder if the anonymous engineer quoted is still at the company.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  While they certainly have a lot more staff than feared (2700 when they said that 90% left) and I think they can probably keep it up mostly ok (there are already bugs) I'm curious where that leaves feature delivery. We've already had blue checks pushed back to November 29th, and now it's pushed back indefinitely. Encrypted DM's may be easier, but I wonder if there are spam/harassment and all sorts of other unknown implications.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tahoeskibum 4y ago
It is almost as though many folks want Twitter to fail, instead of having a better social media to compete with Meta/TikTok. People forget that Elon was one of the original dot com millionaires with his success in PayPal. Back then they said that he can't land/reuse rockets or make electric cars.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  > People forget that Elon was one of the original dot com millionaires with his success in PayPal. Who are these people you speak of. On here? Did you do a poll or how did you figure this out. I thought this was common knowledge.
- MouseTown 4y ago
  I want them all to fail.
  - stalfosknight 4y ago
    I'll drink to that!
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  > It is almost as though many folks want Twitter to fail I don't want Twitter to fail. But if Twitter failing delivers a death blow to the "rich==smart", "leveraged buyouts are good", "billionaires create jobs", etc. beliefs that people have, well, let it fail hard because the world will be better for it.
  - jdthedisciple 4y ago
    Have you actually looked at potential statistical correlations between richness and smartness?
- mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
  > It is almost as though many folks want Twitter to fail I mean, I do want it to fail. It's an awful thing. Maybe it is better than Meta/TikTok (I disagree, I hate them all, but I especially despise twitter), but I still would want it dead. I want them all dead
gleb-arestov 4y ago
In case you are concerned about twitter stability: I'm making tool to backup your likes/bookmarks https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33722663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33722663
- 31337Logic 4y ago
  As someone who is not on Twitter, can you tell me why one would want to backup their Likes?
  - gleb-arestov 4y ago
    I use likes as bookmarks ("likes" used to call "favorites"). There are people who make things, research, stat/vis and tweet about it. Here is few examples from my likes: https://twitter.com/TodePond/status/1593969648042663936 https://twitter.com/TodePond/status/1593969648042663936 https://twitter.com/Mappletons/status/1538801464327426050 https://twitter.com/Mappletons/status/1538801464327426050 https://twitter.com/WilliamChyr/status/1592924106802204673 https://twitter.com/WilliamChyr/status/1592924106802204673 https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1584938446870573057 https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1584938446870573057 https://twitter.com/PuzzlingPlaces/status/1433475218400555011 https://twitter.com/PuzzlingPlaces/status/143347521840055501... https://twitter.com/guycalledfrank/status/1571932481875591170 https://twitter.com/guycalledfrank/status/157193248187559117... https://twitter.com/dragonman225/status/1472998315805777920 https://twitter.com/dragonman225/status/1472998315805777920 https://twitter.com/anastasiaopara/status/1560673892574035969 https://twitter.com/anastasiaopara/status/156067389257403596... https://twitter.com/yiliu_shenburke/status/1536695800935370752 https://twitter.com/yiliu_shenburke/status/15366958009353707... https://twitter.com/NathieVR/status/1588988665564647427 https://twitter.com/NathieVR/status/1588988665564647427
infamouscow 4y ago
It's funny how often idiots claim something will happening in the future, despite insurmountable evidence of the counterfactual.
- masterof0 4y ago
  The closest thing I can relate to that, is the Google engineer that claimed the AI was sentient. Everything for he clicks and likes. Long live the content gods.
- bandyaboot 4y ago
  If someone deserves to be called an “idiot” in regards to this story, it’s the headline writer. The article quoted extensively from an anonymous Twitter engineer, and there was nothing from this person making predictions about the “coming weeks”. I guess the person does think it’s inevitable for the service to continuously degrade over time, and any time in the future is technically included in the “coming weeks”. So, well done headline writer, grab those clicks.
akomtu 4y ago
If every time someone made a loosy forecast that someone had to put a hundred bucks into a 3rd party escrow until the forecast comes true or false, the "news" agencies would run out of rumors to discuss.
bogomipz 4y ago
https://archive.ph/U3qBm https://archive.ph/U3qBm
mrguyorama 4y ago
I was on the "Twitter will could be dead by the end of the weekend" train in the beginning, mostly because the popular narrative was that Twitter was poorly built, which is why they had 7000 developers. I've come around for a couple of reasons: Those devs seem to have overengineered a lot of stuff, and made it pretty robust, and elon still has at least 1000 people who either believe in his hype or couldn't leave because of their visa. That's plenty to keep some form of website with the twitter logo running at all times. 100 people is enough to keep some semblance of "a" twitter running, but more than several hundred means that twitter will have a web presence as long as elon is willing to burn cash, or forever if he finds some profitability. I have several years experience now being the sole person on a mission critical portion of an international company that was still abandoned/ignored/whatever by management. All but 5% of the people I worked with have left, and there are entire portions of the code base that nobody left has ever touched or been involved with. What happens is erosion. A manager will ask "Why is <thing> running poorly, or doing the wrong action" and you will only be able to say "I don't know". You then have to spend an hour tracking down the relevant code and teach yourself something that used to be the remit of a team of twelve and they could have answered/fixed this question in a minute. Now every ticket has to include a section about the required software archeology. Things will keep running, but you can't really build on the previous code very well, because you have no clue how it was built or the sharp edges it works around. Even minor updates to the system means an entire sprint worth of research and a half solution that is less robust. Bugs on the tracker will never be looked at, and the backlog explodes with tickets that won't be touched before the heat death of the universe. It destroys morale, makes onboarding new devs difficult, kills any advantage a previously smart architecture brought you, makes you a pariah in the local employment environment, and reduces even your most senior devs to the output of a brand new junior dev. Your everyday task is "can I put out more fires than will start today".
- midhhhthrow 4y ago
  This is all very much correct, especially about highly competent devs being turned into researchers that require learning the code base archeology for weeks before every sprint before even the slightest ode can be touched. But this isn’t limited to Twitter. This is like half of all the code based I’ve ever worked with
ffwacom 4y ago
This is the same as the people on 4chan waiting for the mass vaccine die-off, with the chant ‘2 more weeks’.
- bandyaboot 4y ago
  It would be the same if those people on 4chan were actually on the team that designed the vaccine. Unless you’re disputing that the person being quoted is/was actually a Twitter engineer.
lambic2 4y ago
It's been interesting looking at the subreddit for twitter, there seems to be more and more issues popping up in the last few days. https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/new/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/new/

30 points by sprague 4y ago

sprague 4y ago

Two weeks since this piece was posted. I wonder if the anonymous engineer quoted is still at the company.

mikkergp 4y ago
While they certainly have a lot more staff than feared (2700 when they said that 90% left) and I think they can probably keep it up mostly ok (there are already bugs) I'm curious where that leaves feature delivery. We've already had blue checks pushed back to November 29th, and now it's pushed back indefinitely. Encrypted DM's may be easier, but I wonder if there are spam/harassment and all sorts of other unknown implications.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tahoeskibum 4y ago

It is almost as though many folks want Twitter to fail, instead of having a better social media to compete with Meta/TikTok. People forget that Elon was one of the original dot com millionaires with his success in PayPal. Back then they said that he can't land/reuse rockets or make electric cars.

mikkergp 4y ago
> People forget that Elon was one of the original dot com millionaires with his success in PayPal. Who are these people you speak of. On here? Did you do a poll or how did you figure this out. I thought this was common knowledge.
MouseTown 4y ago
I want them all to fail.
- stalfosknight 4y ago
  I'll drink to that!
zimpenfish 4y ago
> It is almost as though many folks want Twitter to fail I don't want Twitter to fail. But if Twitter failing delivers a death blow to the "rich==smart", "leveraged buyouts are good", "billionaires create jobs", etc. beliefs that people have, well, let it fail hard because the world will be better for it.
- jdthedisciple 4y ago
  Have you actually looked at potential statistical correlations between richness and smartness?
mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
> It is almost as though many folks want Twitter to fail I mean, I do want it to fail. It's an awful thing. Maybe it is better than Meta/TikTok (I disagree, I hate them all, but I especially despise twitter), but I still would want it dead. I want them all dead

gleb-arestov 4y ago

In case you are concerned about twitter stability: I'm making tool to backup your likes/bookmarks https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33722663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33722663

31337Logic 4y ago
As someone who is not on Twitter, can you tell me why one would want to backup their Likes?
- gleb-arestov 4y ago
  I use likes as bookmarks ("likes" used to call "favorites"). There are people who make things, research, stat/vis and tweet about it. Here is few examples from my likes: https://twitter.com/TodePond/status/1593969648042663936 https://twitter.com/TodePond/status/1593969648042663936 https://twitter.com/Mappletons/status/1538801464327426050 https://twitter.com/Mappletons/status/1538801464327426050 https://twitter.com/WilliamChyr/status/1592924106802204673 https://twitter.com/WilliamChyr/status/1592924106802204673 https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1584938446870573057 https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1584938446870573057 https://twitter.com/PuzzlingPlaces/status/1433475218400555011 https://twitter.com/PuzzlingPlaces/status/143347521840055501... https://twitter.com/guycalledfrank/status/1571932481875591170 https://twitter.com/guycalledfrank/status/157193248187559117... https://twitter.com/dragonman225/status/1472998315805777920 https://twitter.com/dragonman225/status/1472998315805777920 https://twitter.com/anastasiaopara/status/1560673892574035969 https://twitter.com/anastasiaopara/status/156067389257403596... https://twitter.com/yiliu_shenburke/status/1536695800935370752 https://twitter.com/yiliu_shenburke/status/15366958009353707... https://twitter.com/NathieVR/status/1588988665564647427 https://twitter.com/NathieVR/status/1588988665564647427

infamouscow 4y ago

It's funny how often idiots claim something will happening in the future, despite insurmountable evidence of the counterfactual.

masterof0 4y ago
The closest thing I can relate to that, is the Google engineer that claimed the AI was sentient. Everything for he clicks and likes. Long live the content gods.
bandyaboot 4y ago
If someone deserves to be called an “idiot” in regards to this story, it’s the headline writer. The article quoted extensively from an anonymous Twitter engineer, and there was nothing from this person making predictions about the “coming weeks”. I guess the person does think it’s inevitable for the service to continuously degrade over time, and any time in the future is technically included in the “coming weeks”. So, well done headline writer, grab those clicks.

akomtu 4y ago

If every time someone made a loosy forecast that someone had to put a hundred bucks into a 3rd party escrow until the forecast comes true or false, the "news" agencies would run out of rumors to discuss.

bogomipz 4y ago

https://archive.ph/U3qBm https://archive.ph/U3qBm

mrguyorama 4y ago

I was on the "Twitter will could be dead by the end of the weekend" train in the beginning, mostly because the popular narrative was that Twitter was poorly built, which is why they had 7000 developers. I've come around for a couple of reasons: Those devs seem to have overengineered a lot of stuff, and made it pretty robust, and elon still has at least 1000 people who either believe in his hype or couldn't leave because of their visa. That's plenty to keep some form of website with the twitter logo running at all times. 100 people is enough to keep some semblance of "a" twitter running, but more than several hundred means that twitter will have a web presence as long as elon is willing to burn cash, or forever if he finds some profitability. I have several years experience now being the sole person on a mission critical portion of an international company that was still abandoned/ignored/whatever by management. All but 5% of the people I worked with have left, and there are entire portions of the code base that nobody left has ever touched or been involved with. What happens is erosion. A manager will ask "Why is <thing> running poorly, or doing the wrong action" and you will only be able to say "I don't know". You then have to spend an hour tracking down the relevant code and teach yourself something that used to be the remit of a team of twelve and they could have answered/fixed this question in a minute. Now every ticket has to include a section about the required software archeology. Things will keep running, but you can't really build on the previous code very well, because you have no clue how it was built or the sharp edges it works around. Even minor updates to the system means an entire sprint worth of research and a half solution that is less robust. Bugs on the tracker will never be looked at, and the backlog explodes with tickets that won't be touched before the heat death of the universe. It destroys morale, makes onboarding new devs difficult, kills any advantage a previously smart architecture brought you, makes you a pariah in the local employment environment, and reduces even your most senior devs to the output of a brand new junior dev. Your everyday task is "can I put out more fires than will start today".

midhhhthrow 4y ago
This is all very much correct, especially about highly competent devs being turned into researchers that require learning the code base archeology for weeks before every sprint before even the slightest ode can be touched. But this isn’t limited to Twitter. This is like half of all the code based I’ve ever worked with

ffwacom 4y ago

This is the same as the people on 4chan waiting for the mass vaccine die-off, with the chant ‘2 more weeks’.

bandyaboot 4y ago
It would be the same if those people on 4chan were actually on the team that designed the vaccine. Unless you’re disputing that the person being quoted is/was actually a Twitter engineer.

lambic2 4y ago

It's been interesting looking at the subreddit for twitter, there seems to be more and more issues popping up in the last few days. https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/new/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/new/