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2013: A Year of Open Source at Facebook
- jamesgpearce 13y agoI help with open source @ Facebook and wrote this article. AMA.
- capkutay 13y agoFor NoSQL data stores, there's a significant amount of debate over using HBase vs Cassandra. Many HBase advocates point to the fact that HBase is used at Fb over cassandra. Can you comment on HBase in FB's architecture and which features you prioritized the most, leading FB to use it?
- jamesgpearce 13y agoActually, we have a few examples of Cassandra being used here too: Buck uses it (http://facebook.github.io/buck/concept/buckconfig.html http://facebook.github.io/buck/concept/buckconfig.html) and so do Instagram (http://planetcassandra.org/blog/post/instagram-making-the-switch-to-cassandra-from-redis-75-instasavings http://planetcassandra.org/blog/post/instagram-making-the-sw...) ... so as with all of these things, we evaluate options on a case-by-case basis.
- CookWithMe 13y agoDo you run xctool / Travis CI on OS X servers or have you found a way (or at least tried) to make it run on Linux?
- dweekly 13y agohttp://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/apples-mac-mini-reborn/ http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/apples-mac-mini...
- rmrfrmrf 13y agoHey there! I have lot of experience programming but not a lot of CS theory and low level engineering behind it. I find things like HHVM to be really inspiring, and I'd love to one day contribute to such a project. My question is-- how can I cross over from a script kiddie on steroids to a software engineer? Is there any hope if I'm not doctorate track? I'd appreciate any open resources you provide. Thank you for your great work!
- jamesgpearce 13y agoIt takes all sorts! and the best way to prove your chops is to just jump. You can fork HHVM and start by picking up a few of the easier issues and working through them. Our engineers on that project are really friendly and helpful. What can I say... dive in! What is the worst that can happen?
- skillcode 13y agoEh, what the heck, it's the holiday season. Good job, Facebook.
- jamesgpearce 13y agoThanks :)
- oscargrouch 13y agoCould you guys open source the graph processing architecture, besides giraph, like unicorn or the technology behind the graph search, huh? come on, its christmas! :)
- pyman 13y agoDon't forget MyNSA, the software the NSA uses to connect to MySQL databases.
- jtsnow 13y agoMissing from the list is Phabricator (http://phabricator.org/ http://phabricator.org/). We've started using it recently and found it to be fantastic.
- jamesgpearce 13y agoYes indeed - and we use it extensively at Facebook. It just wasn't new this year.
- brandonbloom 13y agoThat page has a good sense of humor! "Written in PHP so literally anyone can contribute, even if they have no idea how to program." Plus a few more gems in there.
- girvo 13y agoI remember looking at Phabricator for project management stuff, but felt that as a single freelance developer I wouldn't get enough out of it that would replace GitLab... What do you think? I'm going to have a play with it tomorrow to see what it's like.
- yareally 13y agoI suppose if you wish to review your own code outside of opening files or through version control alone, it might be useful. That's its ultimate purpose (and facilitating code review in a collaborative way). I think it's a bit overkill for individual development though.
- meowface 13y agoSay what you will about Facebook and some of their privacy concerns, but they definitely are full of true engineers.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- te_chris 13y agoLikely the source of the loose attitude on privacy.
- cpeterso 13y agoFor example, every software developer at Facebook has root access to all production servers and databases.
- meowface 13y agoSource? Do you work there, or know someone who does?
- onedev 13y agoEven interns had this access.
- meowface 13y agoI've been given root access to a handful of internal servers as an intern at some companies in the past, but never database servers or production, customer-facing servers. That seems rather ridiculous.
- onedev 13y agoIt's just part of the engineering culture there. There's a lot of transparency and they try to keep everything as open as they can internally.
- bliti 13y agoI did not know about React. It looks to be like the solution I need for one of my personal projects. In your experience, how does a React code base evolve as it grows? I've bumped into other libraries and frameworks that look simple at first, but then evolve into a big mess. I ventured into the careers area of the site. The computer vision engineering position caught my attention. Do you mind talking about what the position entails? The description is rather vague.
- code_duck 13y agoSame here, I like the look and sound of React and was not aware of it previously. The funky XML-like syntax seems appealing, but then, I thought that about Scala too and that didn't turn out super well for me.
- chenglou 13y agoI use and contribute to React. By far the simplest (and I mean simpler than backbone) and cleanest js framework I've used. It's also used by Facebook, Instagram's whole website and Khan academy. Scalability is not a worry at all.
- amaks 13y agoEngineers at Facebook must be in an interesting position. Working on interesting technical problems behind the controversial social network offering the only way they can make world a better place is by contributing their products to the open source community.
- crorella 13y agoI agree. Facebook is a company with an awful product, but great byproducts like all the open source projects listed here.
- mseebach 13y agoNo, helping hundreds of millions of people stay in touch and have fun does not make the world a better place.
- amaks 13y agoOK, I can understand the staying in touch part, but what kind of having fun do you have in mind? Watching video ads?
- mseebach 13y agoLooking at stuff my friends share, sharing stuff myself and engaging in banter in the comment thread on those items. No, it's generally not the stuff of the court of Sokrates, but definitely fun.
- yeukhon 13y agoWhen will they announce their usage of hg at Facebook?
- jamesgpearce 13y agoIt's in the blog post that we are active contributors to the project... :)
- yeukhon 13y agoI know, but they don't mention what exactly they are using hg for. Someone (from IRC) said they were using this for some "secret" thing :) From IRC I know someone has said git didn't scale very well for Facebook.
- opendomain 13y agoI am the founder of OpenDomain - we let open source groups use domains for Free! Would Facebook like to use WebPlatform.com to help support the Web Platform?