4 ms·

How Tumblr uses \0 in the output of meta tags

88 points by Mithorium 13y ago

martin_ 13y ago
And it's only worth a billion bucks?!
ioquatix 13y ago
I am constantly surprised by the level of quality programming @ large companies. Especially those who only seem to hire "The Best".
- geofft 13y ago
  That should be a lesson in whether "the best" consider it important to every last thing 100% right, or to move quickly and maybe make a small number of mistakes along the way. http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html "It is slightly better to be simple than correct."
  - krapp 13y ago
    Well, they've certainly got "simply not correct" nailed.
  - ioquatix 13y ago
    I would have said being correct AND simple would be ideal. I think in the case of the bug mentioned above, we have a case of neither attribute.
  - awayand 13y ago
    a different "view" would be the 80/20 rule: it takes 80% effort to make the last 20% right.
- staunch 13y ago
  I'm constantly surprised that people confuse code quality and value.
  - mje__ 13y ago
    Without doubt, this is the most important lesson I've learned in my professional career.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  Also, they may be "the best" (because they have a PhD, or something), but have no idea of what makes the best code Yes, the code may suck, but the business is growing. What about those companies that prioritise code quality instead of growth? You probably never heard of them
  - mkr-hn 13y ago
    It would be nice if they at least focused on quality when it comes to security. I lost count of how many fast-growing companies shared their database with the world.
    - raverbashing 13y ago
      Yes, especially in the core areas (security/payments/etc) this needs to be handled carefully. But don't overdo it beyond what is needed. Yes, the DB server needs a firewall, needs good access controls, needs backups. But you probably don't need 5 slave DBs in 3 different geographical zones so that you "try" to achieve 5 9's of reliability for your service that has 100 sales per day.
      - drdaeman 13y ago
        > Yes, the DB server needs a firewall Does it? My recently-built DB machine has 4 listening network sockets that are bound to non-local interfaces: tcp/22:sshd (so I get in), tcp/5432:postgresql (because it's DB server, huh), udp/123:ntpd (so clocks are in sync) and tcp/443:nginx (serves some static pages with performance data). I don't see any place where firewalling's needed.
        bobbydavid 13y ago
        Like in cars, firewalls are a safety measure; they provide a sense of security. What if done program you don't realization is installed opens a port somewhere? So not strictly necessary for correct operation, but then again security is all about being defensive....
        13y ago
- Aldo_MX 13y ago
  Tight schedules are usually the reason behind these mistakes...
joe5150 13y ago
Tumblr has weird bugs that seem to involve character escaping. Searching for tags that have slashes in them seem to end up parsed as URL segments and will return 404s, for instance.

88 points by Mithorium 13y ago

And it's only worth a billion bucks?!

I am constantly surprised by the level of quality programming @ large companies. Especially those who only seem to hire "The Best".

geofft 13y ago
That should be a lesson in whether "the best" consider it important to every last thing 100% right, or to move quickly and maybe make a small number of mistakes along the way. http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html "It is slightly better to be simple than correct."
- krapp 13y ago
  Well, they've certainly got "simply not correct" nailed.
- ioquatix 13y ago
  I would have said being correct AND simple would be ideal. I think in the case of the bug mentioned above, we have a case of neither attribute.
- awayand 13y ago
  a different "view" would be the 80/20 rule: it takes 80% effort to make the last 20% right.
staunch 13y ago
I'm constantly surprised that people confuse code quality and value.
- mje__ 13y ago
  Without doubt, this is the most important lesson I've learned in my professional career.
raverbashing 13y ago
Also, they may be "the best" (because they have a PhD, or something), but have no idea of what makes the best code Yes, the code may suck, but the business is growing. What about those companies that prioritise code quality instead of growth? You probably never heard of them
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  It would be nice if they at least focused on quality when it comes to security. I lost count of how many fast-growing companies shared their database with the world.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    Yes, especially in the core areas (security/payments/etc) this needs to be handled carefully. But don't overdo it beyond what is needed. Yes, the DB server needs a firewall, needs good access controls, needs backups. But you probably don't need 5 slave DBs in 3 different geographical zones so that you "try" to achieve 5 9's of reliability for your service that has 100 sales per day.
    - drdaeman 13y ago
      > Yes, the DB server needs a firewall Does it? My recently-built DB machine has 4 listening network sockets that are bound to non-local interfaces: tcp/22:sshd (so I get in), tcp/5432:postgresql (because it's DB server, huh), udp/123:ntpd (so clocks are in sync) and tcp/443:nginx (serves some static pages with performance data). I don't see any place where firewalling's needed.
      - bobbydavid 13y ago
        Like in cars, firewalls are a safety measure; they provide a sense of security. What if done program you don't realization is installed opens a port somewhere? So not strictly necessary for correct operation, but then again security is all about being defensive....
      - 13y ago
Aldo_MX 13y ago
Tight schedules are usually the reason behind these mistakes...

joe5150 13y ago

Tumblr has weird bugs that seem to involve character escaping. Searching for tags that have slashes in them seem to end up parsed as URL segments and will return 404s, for instance.