4 ms·

Facebook scalability is quite impressive. I think you do need first rate engineers for that.

by vecter 18y ago

mynameishere 18y ago
It's a glorified CRUD app. If they had written the DBMS or Apache or Memcached, then I'd give them credit for the scaling.
- kalvin 18y ago
  They're actually responsible for a lot of improvements to Memcached. Here's a list of things you should give them credit for: http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php
- mitchellh 18y ago
  I agree with Kalvin above. They've had to do a lot of work to keep facebook running smooth and snappy, incorporating many different technologies. And luckily they are open sourcing a lot of their technologies! =]
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
aswanson 18y ago
No, you need first rate engineers to come up with stuff like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter or this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-locked_loop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-locked_loop. I'm sorry, but a scalable web friend contact app is not first rate engineering. I found it funny that they had such rigorous requirements for something so mundane as well. Pearls before swine, I suppose.
- fgimenez 18y ago
  Wow, Kalman Filters are awesome. Time to dig deeper into the wikipedia rabbit hole!
- kwamenum86 18y ago
  I think the end (goal) of Facebook is not exactly a noble one but the means can still be impressive. Managing 110 million users (or 110 million of any high-maintenance node for that matter) is no picnic. Their engineering blog has some pretty interesting stories about the challenges they have faced. If you are into changing the world by willing society forward with ground breaking [insert impressive thing here], your talents would be wasted at Facebook (despite Mark Zuckerburg's stated belief that fb can change the world by allowing people to share with each other and understand each other better). I think they are solving complex problems (which is respectable) for a largely trivial mission. Would you say that Google does not require first rate engineers? I would imagine that the most important part of their operation is scaling. They have admitted themselves that the difference in search results returned by the search engines is virtually nil, so their strategic advantage is really being able to support a lot of users (for the search engine as well as other internet services).
  - unalone 18y ago
    It depends on what you mean by first-rate. I mean, developing the sorts of things the parent mentioned requires a lot more talent than writing an app. But, to be fair, that requires an incredible amount of skill. Most people, including bright and capable people who work hard to learn, won't ever do something like that. But I agree that the people at Facebook, if not all revolutionary and brilliant, are all pretty damn good at what they do. Beyond scalability, too: Facebook has got more small little quirks that go towards usability than any other site that I know. Then they make a redesign that renders all those small quirks pointless because the new layout is vastly easier. Then they introduce more quirks. The first time that I wrote a long message and saw the message window expand, I jumped with excitement. It was pretty awesome to find a new feature one day that I didn't expect and never would have thought to ask for.
    - kwamenum86 18y ago
      I think that if people don't call fb engineers first rate then they have to refrain from using that label for many very good engineers (I used Google as an example in my last comment). Maybe we are using "meaningful contributions as a metric". Here is a page of some of their contributions: http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php I am just reluctant to say that engineers at fb are not first-rate. Are we saying that they are second rate? I agree that fb is the toy analog in the web app world but does that mean that the engineers who banged out the PS3/XBox 360/Wii are second-rate?
quasimojo 18y ago
any idiot can scale given a large enough budget. you just buy more servers. everything i have seen discussed about fb's architecture was done at yahoo or google years ago. i'm not saying they don't have an impressive serving system...it just isn't novel in 2008

Facebook scalability is quite impressive. I think you do need first rate engineers for that.

by vecter 18y ago

Facebook scalability is quite impressive. I think you do need first rate engineers for that.

It's a glorified CRUD app. If they had written the DBMS or Apache or Memcached, then I'd give them credit for the scaling.

kalvin 18y ago
They're actually responsible for a lot of improvements to Memcached. Here's a list of things you should give them credit for: http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php
mitchellh 18y ago
I agree with Kalvin above. They've had to do a lot of work to keep facebook running smooth and snappy, incorporating many different technologies. And luckily they are open sourcing a lot of their technologies! =]
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

aswanson 18y ago

No, you need first rate engineers to come up with stuff like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter or this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-locked_loop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-locked_loop. I'm sorry, but a scalable web friend contact app is not first rate engineering. I found it funny that they had such rigorous requirements for something so mundane as well. Pearls before swine, I suppose.

fgimenez 18y ago
Wow, Kalman Filters are awesome. Time to dig deeper into the wikipedia rabbit hole!
kwamenum86 18y ago
I think the end (goal) of Facebook is not exactly a noble one but the means can still be impressive. Managing 110 million users (or 110 million of any high-maintenance node for that matter) is no picnic. Their engineering blog has some pretty interesting stories about the challenges they have faced. If you are into changing the world by willing society forward with ground breaking [insert impressive thing here], your talents would be wasted at Facebook (despite Mark Zuckerburg's stated belief that fb can change the world by allowing people to share with each other and understand each other better). I think they are solving complex problems (which is respectable) for a largely trivial mission. Would you say that Google does not require first rate engineers? I would imagine that the most important part of their operation is scaling. They have admitted themselves that the difference in search results returned by the search engines is virtually nil, so their strategic advantage is really being able to support a lot of users (for the search engine as well as other internet services).
- unalone 18y ago
  It depends on what you mean by first-rate. I mean, developing the sorts of things the parent mentioned requires a lot more talent than writing an app. But, to be fair, that requires an incredible amount of skill. Most people, including bright and capable people who work hard to learn, won't ever do something like that. But I agree that the people at Facebook, if not all revolutionary and brilliant, are all pretty damn good at what they do. Beyond scalability, too: Facebook has got more small little quirks that go towards usability than any other site that I know. Then they make a redesign that renders all those small quirks pointless because the new layout is vastly easier. Then they introduce more quirks. The first time that I wrote a long message and saw the message window expand, I jumped with excitement. It was pretty awesome to find a new feature one day that I didn't expect and never would have thought to ask for.
  - kwamenum86 18y ago
    I think that if people don't call fb engineers first rate then they have to refrain from using that label for many very good engineers (I used Google as an example in my last comment). Maybe we are using "meaningful contributions as a metric". Here is a page of some of their contributions: http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php I am just reluctant to say that engineers at fb are not first-rate. Are we saying that they are second rate? I agree that fb is the toy analog in the web app world but does that mean that the engineers who banged out the PS3/XBox 360/Wii are second-rate?

quasimojo 18y ago

any idiot can scale given a large enough budget. you just buy more servers. everything i have seen discussed about fb's architecture was done at yahoo or google years ago. i'm not saying they don't have an impressive serving system...it just isn't novel in 2008