I wish there were some good online resources around Erlang. Most of the content is very theoretical and not explanatory. Its hard to find implementation of common algorithms like Sorting, graphs, link-list and other dataStructures in erlang.
Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
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Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#22This articles doesn't look that convincing to me. I has no technical details to prove that Erlang was the major reason why WhatsApp was scalable. I think the low number of engineers has more to do with the simplicity of their product than with this particular language choice.
WhatsApp engineers themselves said Erlang was the main reason they were able to scale as well as they did.
Didn't they get a big head start from ejabberd? I hope they gave them some stock.
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#23WhatsApp seems to be a great example of designing your system with the best tools available. To go from nothing to pretty much being the de-facto modern replacement for SMS in a couple of years is an amazing achievement. I really need to sit down and spend some time properly learning a functional language. I can hack my way through Haskell code but I do it in a very non-Haskell way. I really need to change that. My p…
For Erlang, there is the book by Joe Armstrong:
https://pragprog.com/book/jaerlang2/programming-erlang
The problem with learning functional languages is finding pragmatic learning materials.
I would claim F# is currently the most approachable functional language (just my opinion but I have at least toyed with the other mainstream offerings).
My background is also in C++. The F# materials listed helped me personally to develop as a programmer and have made approaching other languages like Erlang easier.
Sestoft's programming language concepts: https://www.itu.dk/~sestoft/plc/
Expert F# 3.0 contains lots of short snippets and examples: http://www.apress.com/9781430246503
Flying frog consultancys materials are steep in price but I found them worth my dime (Visual F# 2010 for Technical Computing and the materials in The F# Journal) http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/index.html
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#24Because adding more engineers will make the development slower ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month ).
WhatsApp is a service in production, not a project behind deadline.
Yes, but the reason more people create overhead in a late project are the same why they create overhead in an organization.
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#25If this isn't a counter to the inane recruiting requirements of "5 years with language X" I don't know what is: We don’t bring them in specifically because the engineer knows Erlang,” Mahdavi said on Monday. “We expect the engineer to come in and spend their first week getting familiar with the language and learning to use the environment. If you hire smart people, they’ll be able to do that.”
This reminds me of how we have been hiring engineers.
We sit them down for a day with a fairly simple task (build a simple web or mobile app, about three screens with a basic data model) but we make sure to give them a language or framework they are unfamiliar with.
They have Google, Stack Overflow, and other employees to use as a resource. It's a great way to get to know new hires while seeing how resourceful and interested in learning they are.
Every candidate has built the app to spec with a few hours remaining, but it's really good to see those who take the initiative to spend a bit of extra time polishing it and explaining it to us, and responding to our feedback.
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#26> Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users Answer: because sending short messages from A to B is basically a solved problem. There is even a programming language (Erlang) that was made with this application in mind. The prototypical "Hello World" example for Erlang is a messaging application.
Yep. And of course, Erlang is really only a functional language in the small, the parts that don't matter so much. In the large, arguably the scale that matters, it's an actor language, with highly encapsulated entities exchanging messages. So essentially what Alan Kay had in mind when he coined the term "object oriented".
http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#27I got my first ever spam on whatsapp the other day from someone who had never been a contact, and there seems to be no way whatsoever to prevent it. So maybe they should hire 1 more engineer to work on spam.
Adding more privacy controls would sort of kill the point of it as SMS killer. You can block specific people. What they should control is the APIs that are popping up like promotional SMS with support for Whatsapp. These companies are obviously circumventing their endpoints.
I have to disagree.
Whitelisting should always be an option - it's simple to achieve technically and allows the consumer to have complete control.
Edit: And the fact there is no whitelisting is also the reason I removed the app from my phone.
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#28I would love to see a list of these 50 engineers, their skills and how they are organized. It provides guidance for other teams (even if part of their software is written in Erlang!).
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#29Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#30> Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users Answer: because sending short messages from A to B is basically a solved problem. There is even a programming language (Erlang) that was made with this application in mind. The prototypical "Hello World" example for Erlang is a messaging application.
Actually, over lossy links, it's well known to be an impossible problem: