what is fb doing for iOS builds and compiles?
iOS at Facebook [pdf]
41–50 of 111 posts
Re: iOS at Facebook [pdf]
#42This was pretty interesting. It would have never occurred to me that XCode, Git, etc. couldn't handle as much as you throw at it, but it kind of makes sense how they explain it here. Still, I don't think I would like to actually work in that environment where the codebase changed so much so often and had so much dead and redundant code, so I guess I'm glad my interview with them didn't go terribly well (got asked que…
Apple uses XCode to make iOS (and OS X and even XCode!), so it obviously can handle more than Facebook.app, but it doesn't fit their culture. Same with Git frankly.
Re: iOS at Facebook [pdf]
#43Very interesting, even as a fan of native apps I can see the thought process behind doing it web based when you have to build so many tools for each platform.
Except it's mostly not web based.
As Synaesthesia notes, it was. I meant with processes and tools like the post describes building once sound like a good idea...
Re: iOS at Facebook [pdf]
#44This didn't really tell me why Facebook needs 400 people to work on the iOS app and 75 commits per hour.
Surely most of these commits are either automated, or similar in nature (i.e., adding some static resources to some file).
> Here are the stats for the week starting 24 August this year.In that week: 429 unique contributors 2823 total commits
Right below it:
> Doesn’t include commits to bump version numbers, add translated strings etc - actual number is over 4,000
Any way you slice it that is a chaotic pace of change.
Re: iOS at Facebook [pdf]
#45So, FB app is bloated because they choose to be sloppy is what I read. Wonder how sustainable this is over the long term?
Sloppy?! Those guys have needs the majority of us will never need to deal with. Did you read the presentation? If anything they're the opposite of sloppy.
Their needs don't explain all the redundant and unused code. It's slop, plain and simple.
Re: iOS at Facebook [pdf]
#46It's interesting to note that this presentation strongly contradicts the advice of "The Pragmatic Programmer" and "Clean Code", which are highly respected by many. Does this mean that those books are wrong, or does it mean that Facebook will eventually come to regret their philosophy? Or maybe writing this kind of code is somehow fundamentally different, so the usual wisdom and rules of thumb don't apply.
I really don't know the answer, but find it fascinating and can't wait to see what Facebook is doing in 10 years time.
Re: iOS at Facebook [pdf]
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The parent is not referring to those needs (which are legitimate). The presentation talks a lot about the hacking culture; how there is a lot of duplicate code, a lot of dead code, a lot of "temporary" code. We call these things technical debt. But it sounds like they just never fix them. Refactors never happen.
They don't call it debt. It is simply their way of keeping their agility with a huge number of developers. If the flip side is junk that mostly impacts install space, I don't see it as a bad trade-off. What alternative way would you suggest to keep your mega team productive and shipping features?
Productivity != Total Output.
Re: iOS at Facebook [pdf]
#48"Done is better than perfect" "Move fast and break things" I'm glad they're not holding any critical data like our personal information, what we do, what we think and where we are then! If this set of slides embodies 'hacker culture' which it claims to, I am not a hacker, neither are my colleagues and I'm proud of that. The whole thing stinks of arrogance hiding incompetence. I'm not putting anything near facebook, e…
To be fair, most of these specific signs have been removed now/changed (I was an intern there fall 2013). They actually talked about how that used to be a slogan, but breaking stuff isn't really acceptable anymore because facebook is so big. They still wanted us to move really fast though...
From what I have heard they are now expecting their employees to still move fast, break stuff, but be ready to be penalized for it if you do. So, really, they are encouraging their employees to move at a steady pace with occasional hack nights when there is an upcoming release in the near-term. Facebook is growing old.
Re: iOS at Facebook [pdf]
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
This strategy was hugely successful for Microsoft since the early days of Windows NT 3.1: “What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away.” The performance advancements on the hardware side of the platform are almost entirely consumed by the ever-increasing complexity of the most popular app on the software side.
That may be successful for the software companies. But pity the user who's stuck with old hardware and wants to know why used computers don't last as long as used cars. Maybe when Moore's Law finally becomes invalid...
Actually, the hacks they used make the app work better on older hardware.
As another example, the proprietary office formats contained a lot of hacks specifically designed to make the files load faster on older PCs. Newer PCs were able to compensate with the complexity because they were faster.
Re: iOS at Facebook [pdf]
#50This was pretty interesting. It would have never occurred to me that XCode, Git, etc. couldn't handle as much as you throw at it, but it kind of makes sense how they explain it here. Still, I don't think I would like to actually work in that environment where the codebase changed so much so often and had so much dead and redundant code, so I guess I'm glad my interview with them didn't go terribly well (got asked que…
What keywords do you think the interviewer was looking for? Was it along the lines of "disruptive", "game-changing", "innovative", etc.?
I don't remember what all of them were, but I specifically remember one of them had the words "Toll Booth" in it, like "Toll Booth Blah", where blah is the key word I can't remember. It's some networking/communication concept, I think. The phone interview person had a fairly difficult accent too so I don't think I even heard the whole answer.
I've only ever encountered the term once online since. I just tried to Google for it again and I can't find the write combo of terms to find it ("toll booth networking? no.... toll booth computer science? no.....")
So I tried to answer that question with what happens on a concept level, and the person on the line said "No. The answer is 'Toll Booth Blah'. 'Toll Booh Blah'" and moved on to the next question. Like she was Alex Trebek and there was only one way to answer the question.
Meanwhile Google thought I was good enough to fly over for an in-person interview at around the same time, so I just wrote Facebook off as being terrible at hiring and moved on.
To date it's still the worst phone interview experience I've had, and I've had some awful ones.