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Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

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Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#41

Post by hospitalJail »

Yoric wrote: post #18
blitzar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet here it is ... powering a global scale app. Too weak for someones hobby project, strong enough for global scale.

My few years of personal experience of using Python with even small-ish scale professional projects have been... underwhelming so far. I wonder how Meta (and Google, and all the others who write serious Python code) manage to keep things running – and I'm not talking (only) of performance, but largely of bugs. My personal suspicion is that the secret sauce is simply to have a sufficient budget to hire an army of code…

>My few years of personal experience of using Python with even small-ish scale professional projects have been... underwhelming so far

You have years of experience but couldn't point to anything in particular?

Heck, I like python and I can complain about dynamic typing issues in for loops, or that they are adding features like generators/decorators that make code more difficult to understand, which goes against the zen of python.

(But I still think python is great)

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#44

Post by aeyes »

philipov wrote: post #35
ambivalence wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is on Mastodon as well, actually: https://mastodon.social/@ambv/110665808046065754

Could we get the mastodon link as the main link, please? Can actually view that one.

Is the Twitter link really not working for you at the moment? I can open it without having an account.

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#45

Post by aeyes »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #25
mlrtph100 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Google and Dropbox, who switched to Golang, are hobby projects.

Choice of language is not what makes things succeed or fail in production. Team best practices, enforcement of coding style and technique, good project management, infrastructure, and team cohesion etc. And weeding out bad engineers who think that "switching to a new [language|framework|religion]" will solve all problems. 10+ years ago Facebook itself did a remarkable job of scaling up, with hardly any outages, a PHP…

Also, what's really different from Instagram? You change the picture for a short text and many other features already existed - comments, likes, subscriptions, recommendations, personal messages...

I think this is just an Instagram skin with some feature flags.

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#46

Post by [deleted] »

ambivalence wrote: post #26
TheAdamist wrote: post #9

Ironic that a post about Threads backend is hosted on twitter.

If you want real irony here, it's this: powering an app called Threads with Python that's got a global interpreter lock which makes threading hard. Get it? Threads, threading...? OK, I'll see myself out.

[deleted]

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#48

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

ambivalence wrote: post #22
Yoric wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My few years of personal experience of using Python with even small-ish scale professional projects have been... underwhelming so far. I wonder how Meta (and Google, and all the others who write serious Python code) manage to keep things running – and I'm not talking (only) of performance, but largely of bugs. My personal suspicion is that the secret sauce is simply to have a sufficient budget to hire an army of code…

In short: static analysis, unit tests, staging environments, effective log aggregation. The first one is a big productivity booster as it shows you bugs before you commit them. Here's a post about this, not exactly new but still describing the general principles very well: https://instagram-engineering.com/static-analysis-at-scale-a...

I would say that those things don't really contribute to the actual runtime scalability of the application. Those things ensure that the code is at least correct for what it's supposed to do, not necessarily whether it's performant. Even the most perfectly-written Python code will still be dog-slow and require an enormous budget to actually run at scale. It's obviously fine to do that and there are many success stories, but all of them required massive infrastructure investment.

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#49

Post by _Algernon_ »

xk_id wrote: post #30
nunez wrote: post #24

Can we block Twitter links on HN? No point in supporting that user-hostile tire fire. This could have been on Mastodon.

The links are being submitted and voted on by other members of the community. I’m not sure what gives you the impression you’re in a position of authority.

Asking a question is having the impression that one is in a position of authority now?

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#50

Post by redleader55 »

nunez wrote: post #24

Can we block Twitter links on HN? No point in supporting that user-hostile tire fire. This could have been on Mastodon.

I think the cautionary tale here is not to do what Twitter did: prevent links to competing products, blocking open access, etc.

Don't you find it ironic that you are proposing we do on HN exactly what Twitter did, which is probably why you suggest not linking to Twitter?

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