LightSpeed: Rewriting Messenger’s codebase for a faster, smaller, simpler app

Post by keyle » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

aldanor wrote: post #85

So, they've reduced 1.7M lines of code to 360K. Let's pause here for a moment: - NumPy is 360K lines mostly C - Postgres is around 2.1M of C - Go 1.13 is around 1.5M of Go code - Rust 1.37 is around 1.2M of Rust code iirc - core llvm is around 3M of C++ iirc ... A chat app is 1.7M. A chat app... Makes me feel sorry for all the time spent/wasted by all those devs, many of whom are unquestionably brilliant and could've…

Post by threeseed » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 12:01 AM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #120

lwb wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, a chat app that 1 billion+ use per month that includes payments, camera effects, extensive social integrations, stories, GIFs, reactions, games, polls, voice recording, calling, video chat, and works across all mobile platforms, with nine years of technical debt, that thousands of developers build simultaneously seems WAY more complicated to me than any of your examples. Messenger may not have "HN clout" bu…

> that includes payments, camera effects, extensive social integrations, stories, GIFs, reactions, games, polls, voice recording, calling, video chat To be fair, this is part of the problem ^

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 12:07 AM UTC

HeavenFox wrote: post #182

aldanor wrote: post #85

So, they've reduced 1.7M lines of code to 360K. Let's pause here for a moment: - NumPy is 360K lines mostly C - Postgres is around 2.1M of C - Go 1.13 is around 1.5M of Go code - Rust 1.37 is around 1.2M of Rust code iirc - core llvm is around 3M of C++ iirc ... A chat app is 1.7M. A chat app... Makes me feel sorry for all the time spent/wasted by all those devs, many of whom are unquestionably brilliant and could've…

Rumors are the FB iOS app have more lines of code than iOS itself

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 12:08 AM UTC

Klonoar wrote: post #89

saagarjha wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WKWebView is out-of-process and has a JIT.

Ah, you're correct - not sure why I thought otherwise, especially when I touch WKWebView pretty often.

Post by hitekker » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 12:12 AM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #45

reggieband wrote: post #17

From: https://engineering.fb.com/data-infrastructure/messenger/ > We accomplished this by using the native OS wherever possible Does this mean this application does not use React Native?

Man, I hope so. There has beens so much cargo cult built up around React Native that suggesting other approaches is almost guaranteed to kick off many rounds of contentious design meetings. Fortunately, nothing quite takes the wind out of a platform's sails like watching the creator back away from the platform.