7 ms·

Asynchronous JavaScript at Netflix

109 points by rcsorensen 12y ago

eranation 12y ago
Very interesting. By the way if someone is interested in more details about Reactive programming, there is a great coursera course about it (https://www.coursera.org/course/reactive https://www.coursera.org/course/reactive)
pscsbs 12y ago
Link to slide deck is broken. Mirror: http://www.slideshare.net/tymekpavel/asynchronous-javascript-at-netflix http://www.slideshare.net/tymekpavel/asynchronous-javascript...
Strilanc 12y ago
Really glad to see reactive catching on. It really is a significant improvement over raw events, even in trivial cases.
kitd 12y ago
Note that Netflix have a Java version here https://github.com/Netflix/RxJava https://github.com/Netflix/RxJava They certainly have some interesting technology.
- mason55 12y ago
  > They certainly have some interesting technology. I would hope so based on the salaries they pay their engineers
  - nilkn 12y ago
    They pay roughly the same as Google or Facebook, except they put everything into the salary and leave it up to the employee to decide what to do with it. If you want stock options, you can just trade some cash for them (at a reduced rate). So their salaries are higher, but the total compensation is roughly the same.
bicknergseng 12y ago
Opinions on reactive vs promises?
- alipang 12y ago
  Reactive (event) streams are a generalization of promises in a sense, from a single value to a stream of multiple ones. Both are monads. Streams are to promises what lists are to maybes (options).
- mattpodwysocki 12y ago
  Reactive is really good for events which could happen zero to infinite times. The composition model is great for that, because we treat these as collections that you can query just as you would query an Array in JavaScript. Promises on the other hand, are more for scalar values and composition is rather limited based upon that. However, RxJS plays very well with Promises such as the following: https://gist.github.com/mattpodwysocki/b57cf50a34f22ba39e4f https://gist.github.com/mattpodwysocki/b57cf50a34f22ba39e4f . This really shows where Promises leave off and true good composition starts.
gsoltis 12y ago
I've been prototyping some bindings to make Firebase work with RxJava / RxJS, since the model seems like a good fit. If anyone has the time and inclination, I'd love some feedback. RxJava: https://gist.github.com/gsoltis/86210e3259dcc6998801 https://gist.github.com/gsoltis/86210e3259dcc6998801 RxJS: https://gist.github.com/gsoltis/ee20138502a4764650f2 https://gist.github.com/gsoltis/ee20138502a4764650f2 Also, is ReactiveCocoa what most people would use to do this in ObjC? https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/Rx.ObjC https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/Rx.ObjC doesn't seem particularly active.
- mattpodwysocki 12y ago
  First off, great work! I'm the primary authors of RxJS and made a quick comment on your Firebase interaction. We need to ensure that we minimize the number of handlers created. Comments should be inline! Keep up the great work!
RoboTeddy 12y ago
Here's another javascript FRP library: https://github.com/baconjs/bacon.js https://github.com/baconjs/bacon.js (it was inspired by Rx) I've been using bacon.js in conjunction with Facebook's React to write more of my application declaratively. React automatically updates the DOM when bacon properties change.
- mattpodwysocki 12y ago
  A number of people have been using React with RxJS as noted here: https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/FutureJS https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/FutureJS . We also have native support in RxJS for jQuery/Zepto, Angular and Ember events natively (if of course they are referenced). As the primary author of RxJS, I'm curious why you chose bacon.js over RxJS. Anyhow, these architectures go well together!
  - RoboTeddy 12y ago
    Thanks for making RxJS! > I'm curious why you chose bacon.js over RxJS At the time I made the decision, Bacon had documentation and RxJS didn't (at least, not that I could find). I was new to FRP, so that made my decision for me -- I never went back and reconsidered. Are you aware of any advantages RxJS has over Bacon? It looks a bit more extensive in general, so now I wonder what I'm missing out on :)
film42 12y ago
The conf talk on youtube by Matt Marenghi [linked in the post] is really awesome. Provides great examples and resources. Really worth 28-min. Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRYN2xt11Ek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRYN2xt11Ek
mattpodwysocki 12y ago
This talk has been given a number of times, but keeps getting better, such as at MountainWest JavaScript 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE692Clb5LU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE692Clb5LU Jafar Husain, and myself (Matthew Podwysocki) will also be giving the talk at QCon NYC in June: https://qconnewyork.com/presentation/end-end-reactive-programming-netflix https://qconnewyork.com/presentation/end-end-reactive-progra... in addition to a great tutorial that we put together: https://qconnewyork.com/tutorial/functional-programming-js-w-focus-reactive-programming-rx-js-0 https://qconnewyork.com/tutorial/functional-programming-js-w... But, if you're interested in playing with it yourself, we have it listed here: http://reactive-extensions.github.io/learnrx/ http://reactive-extensions.github.io/learnrx/
- joshka 12y ago
  I saw this at Yow! a couple of years ago. Really cool stuff.
shanemhansen 12y ago
As opposed to... Synchronous javascript?

109 points by rcsorensen 12y ago

Very interesting. By the way if someone is interested in more details about Reactive programming, there is a great coursera course about it (https://www.coursera.org/course/reactive https://www.coursera.org/course/reactive)

pscsbs 12y ago

Link to slide deck is broken. Mirror: http://www.slideshare.net/tymekpavel/asynchronous-javascript-at-netflix http://www.slideshare.net/tymekpavel/asynchronous-javascript...

Strilanc 12y ago

Really glad to see reactive catching on. It really is a significant improvement over raw events, even in trivial cases.

kitd 12y ago

Note that Netflix have a Java version here https://github.com/Netflix/RxJava https://github.com/Netflix/RxJava They certainly have some interesting technology.

mason55 12y ago
> They certainly have some interesting technology. I would hope so based on the salaries they pay their engineers
- nilkn 12y ago
  They pay roughly the same as Google or Facebook, except they put everything into the salary and leave it up to the employee to decide what to do with it. If you want stock options, you can just trade some cash for them (at a reduced rate). So their salaries are higher, but the total compensation is roughly the same.

bicknergseng 12y ago

Opinions on reactive vs promises?

alipang 12y ago
Reactive (event) streams are a generalization of promises in a sense, from a single value to a stream of multiple ones. Both are monads. Streams are to promises what lists are to maybes (options).
mattpodwysocki 12y ago
Reactive is really good for events which could happen zero to infinite times. The composition model is great for that, because we treat these as collections that you can query just as you would query an Array in JavaScript. Promises on the other hand, are more for scalar values and composition is rather limited based upon that. However, RxJS plays very well with Promises such as the following: https://gist.github.com/mattpodwysocki/b57cf50a34f22ba39e4f https://gist.github.com/mattpodwysocki/b57cf50a34f22ba39e4f . This really shows where Promises leave off and true good composition starts.

gsoltis 12y ago

I've been prototyping some bindings to make Firebase work with RxJava / RxJS, since the model seems like a good fit. If anyone has the time and inclination, I'd love some feedback. RxJava: https://gist.github.com/gsoltis/86210e3259dcc6998801 https://gist.github.com/gsoltis/86210e3259dcc6998801 RxJS: https://gist.github.com/gsoltis/ee20138502a4764650f2 https://gist.github.com/gsoltis/ee20138502a4764650f2 Also, is ReactiveCocoa what most people would use to do this in ObjC? https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/Rx.ObjC https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/Rx.ObjC doesn't seem particularly active.

mattpodwysocki 12y ago
First off, great work! I'm the primary authors of RxJS and made a quick comment on your Firebase interaction. We need to ensure that we minimize the number of handlers created. Comments should be inline! Keep up the great work!

RoboTeddy 12y ago

Here's another javascript FRP library: https://github.com/baconjs/bacon.js https://github.com/baconjs/bacon.js (it was inspired by Rx) I've been using bacon.js in conjunction with Facebook's React to write more of my application declaratively. React automatically updates the DOM when bacon properties change.

mattpodwysocki 12y ago
A number of people have been using React with RxJS as noted here: https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/FutureJS https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/FutureJS . We also have native support in RxJS for jQuery/Zepto, Angular and Ember events natively (if of course they are referenced). As the primary author of RxJS, I'm curious why you chose bacon.js over RxJS. Anyhow, these architectures go well together!
- RoboTeddy 12y ago
  Thanks for making RxJS! > I'm curious why you chose bacon.js over RxJS At the time I made the decision, Bacon had documentation and RxJS didn't (at least, not that I could find). I was new to FRP, so that made my decision for me -- I never went back and reconsidered. Are you aware of any advantages RxJS has over Bacon? It looks a bit more extensive in general, so now I wonder what I'm missing out on :)

film42 12y ago

The conf talk on youtube by Matt Marenghi [linked in the post] is really awesome. Provides great examples and resources. Really worth 28-min. Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRYN2xt11Ek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRYN2xt11Ek

mattpodwysocki 12y ago

This talk has been given a number of times, but keeps getting better, such as at MountainWest JavaScript 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE692Clb5LU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE692Clb5LU Jafar Husain, and myself (Matthew Podwysocki) will also be giving the talk at QCon NYC in June: https://qconnewyork.com/presentation/end-end-reactive-programming-netflix https://qconnewyork.com/presentation/end-end-reactive-progra... in addition to a great tutorial that we put together: https://qconnewyork.com/tutorial/functional-programming-js-w-focus-reactive-programming-rx-js-0 https://qconnewyork.com/tutorial/functional-programming-js-w... But, if you're interested in playing with it yourself, we have it listed here: http://reactive-extensions.github.io/learnrx/ http://reactive-extensions.github.io/learnrx/

joshka 12y ago
I saw this at Yow! a couple of years ago. Really cool stuff.

shanemhansen 12y ago

As opposed to... Synchronous javascript?