4 ms·

0 to full platform in 5 months doesn’t seems impossible when you are Meta, especially for a Twitter-like. Still impressive, but the hard part of launching a T

by pjerem 3y ago

0 to full platform in 5 months doesn’t seems impossible when you are Meta, especially for a Twitter-like. Still impressive, but the hard part of launching a Twitter competitor is not technical, especially when you already have a virtually infinite amount of already competent developers and infrastructure and when you don’t need the product to make money asap. The hard part is launching it commercially and giving it enough momentum. Like the adage says, I can code Twitter in a weekend but it will not be Twitter and it will not magically make money.

blowski 3y ago
I reckon I could implement 90% of the end-user functional features of Twitter in a weekend. The remaining 10% of the features would take at least another year, and the non-functionals (performance, reliability, observability, scalability, etc) would take me a lifetime. But that second sentence turns Twitter from a useful little tool into a valuable product.
- nielsole 3y ago
  It's not features you'd be missing but userbase
  - pjerem 3y ago
    Not only, most of twitter’s features are in fact not public facing and are those which are making money. Public facing features are just the loss leading part of Twitter. It’s even probably a little portion of the company’s code base.
- yashg 3y ago
  Precisely. Most of the developers, including seasoned ones look at an application and say I can build it over a weekend. Yes you can. For your own use. For it to become a real product which is stable and scalable, takes much more time and effort.
- Irishsteve 3y ago
  I think someone complained about twitter search to elon musk when he took it over saying how he could fix it easily. From memory, he left pretty quickly and said ihe was unable to fix it
  - threeseed 3y ago
    That would be George Hotz. Text-book of how it takes more than just technical skills to get things done.
  - dustincoates 3y ago
    George Hotz. Here's an HN discussion about when he joined: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33723257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33723257 The top comment is funny in retrospect. "He already removed the login prompt which was a huge annoyance as a read only user of twitter." Twitter is now significantly more unusable as a read-only user, as you can't see beyond the first tweet in a thread.
    - blowski 3y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34074344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34074344 His resignation four weeks later.
- ksec 3y ago
  I think you mostly describe the problem with modern web development. There are frameworks and tools that makes implementing Twitter in a weekend possible. What we need is to make the non-functionals (performance, reliability, observability, scalability, etc) part 10-100x easier to scale.
  - gloryjulio 3y ago
    So you are describing aws. The problem of infra is that you need someone to run it. Until then, either run it yourself or pay someone to do it
    - blowski 3y ago
      AWS doesn’t give you automatic 100% of NFRs, it just gives you more options in the trade-offs. For example, doing a database upgrade safely.
- ndr 3y ago
  They have at least 2 web clients, iOS and Android native apps and this is not even taking into account analytics, ads or spaces. What's included in that 90%? Because I don't think the "What is happening?!" form and the timeline quite cut it.
- chipdart 3y ago
  > I reckon I could implement 90% of the end-user functional features of Twitter in a weekend. Building a Twitter clone is an exercise that's frequently used in system design interviews. It's a popular exercise because it's a trivial system to implement to meet client-driven requirements, but the feature set becomes progressively more complex when scale, performance, and business requirements are thrown into the mix.
- fendy3002 3y ago
  Everyone forget about back office functionalities, like content moderation, user verification, etc. That also applies the pareto principle, 80 20
  - blowski 3y ago
    You’re right, I didn’t even think about these! I still wouldn’t include them in end-user facing features, but try are certainly necessary to be a valuable product at Twitter-scale.
jajko 3y ago
I use FB since cca 2008 (now much much less), and it has been various bugfest throughout the years, till these days. I don't mean unexpected confusing behavior but outright bugs. Comments added twice or not added, some images not uploaded into albums, stuff disappearing right in front of me when writing comment, double notifications for the same, page just dying and so on and on. No issues anywhere else, its not due to sloppy internet connection. I talk about desktop web client, removed anything from meta from phone long ago and not going back. If it wouldn't be for the social part of connecting with long-lost folks from the past, I wouldn't use a service that behaved like a student project for decade and a half. So actually shipping something working, and so fast, by same folks, is indeed impressive to me (not sure if same sort of basic bugs are there though, I am generally in direction of moving away from these 'social' platforms that actually in my view makes us as whole society more antisocial, we are simply built for physical interaction on many levels, we thrive with it and wither away without, even us introverts).

by pjerem 3y ago

blowski 3y ago

I reckon I could implement 90% of the end-user functional features of Twitter in a weekend. The remaining 10% of the features would take at least another year, and the non-functionals (performance, reliability, observability, scalability, etc) would take me a lifetime. But that second sentence turns Twitter from a useful little tool into a valuable product.

nielsole 3y ago
It's not features you'd be missing but userbase
- pjerem 3y ago
  Not only, most of twitter’s features are in fact not public facing and are those which are making money. Public facing features are just the loss leading part of Twitter. It’s even probably a little portion of the company’s code base.
yashg 3y ago
Precisely. Most of the developers, including seasoned ones look at an application and say I can build it over a weekend. Yes you can. For your own use. For it to become a real product which is stable and scalable, takes much more time and effort.
Irishsteve 3y ago
I think someone complained about twitter search to elon musk when he took it over saying how he could fix it easily. From memory, he left pretty quickly and said ihe was unable to fix it
- threeseed 3y ago
  That would be George Hotz. Text-book of how it takes more than just technical skills to get things done.
- dustincoates 3y ago
  George Hotz. Here's an HN discussion about when he joined: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33723257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33723257 The top comment is funny in retrospect. "He already removed the login prompt which was a huge annoyance as a read only user of twitter." Twitter is now significantly more unusable as a read-only user, as you can't see beyond the first tweet in a thread.
  - blowski 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34074344 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34074344 His resignation four weeks later.
ksec 3y ago
I think you mostly describe the problem with modern web development. There are frameworks and tools that makes implementing Twitter in a weekend possible. What we need is to make the non-functionals (performance, reliability, observability, scalability, etc) part 10-100x easier to scale.
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  So you are describing aws. The problem of infra is that you need someone to run it. Until then, either run it yourself or pay someone to do it
  - blowski 3y ago
    AWS doesn’t give you automatic 100% of NFRs, it just gives you more options in the trade-offs. For example, doing a database upgrade safely.
ndr 3y ago
They have at least 2 web clients, iOS and Android native apps and this is not even taking into account analytics, ads or spaces. What's included in that 90%? Because I don't think the "What is happening?!" form and the timeline quite cut it.
chipdart 3y ago
> I reckon I could implement 90% of the end-user functional features of Twitter in a weekend. Building a Twitter clone is an exercise that's frequently used in system design interviews. It's a popular exercise because it's a trivial system to implement to meet client-driven requirements, but the feature set becomes progressively more complex when scale, performance, and business requirements are thrown into the mix.
fendy3002 3y ago
Everyone forget about back office functionalities, like content moderation, user verification, etc. That also applies the pareto principle, 80 20
- blowski 3y ago
  You’re right, I didn’t even think about these! I still wouldn’t include them in end-user facing features, but try are certainly necessary to be a valuable product at Twitter-scale.

jajko 3y ago

I use FB since cca 2008 (now much much less), and it has been various bugfest throughout the years, till these days. I don't mean unexpected confusing behavior but outright bugs. Comments added twice or not added, some images not uploaded into albums, stuff disappearing right in front of me when writing comment, double notifications for the same, page just dying and so on and on. No issues anywhere else, its not due to sloppy internet connection. I talk about desktop web client, removed anything from meta from phone long ago and not going back. If it wouldn't be for the social part of connecting with long-lost folks from the past, I wouldn't use a service that behaved like a student project for decade and a half. So actually shipping something working, and so fast, by same folks, is indeed impressive to me (not sure if same sort of basic bugs are there though, I am generally in direction of moving away from these 'social' platforms that actually in my view makes us as whole society more antisocial, we are simply built for physical interaction on many levels, we thrive with it and wither away without, even us introverts).