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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

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out calling the app "Threads by Instagram" is not just a branding gimmick. The Instagram backend was always Python/Django since before the acquisition.

That's pretty interesting, I wonder if that means that it's build by a team at Instagram, and not Facebook. I'd assume so. I get that Facebook is still a huge success, but I do find it telling that they opted to put Threads under Instagram, rather than Facebook.

I think its pretty obvious they went with Instagram branding, as Facebook branding has been tarnished for a while.

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#223
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python is just fine for all the 100 users Threads will manage to acquire. :)

> all the 100 users That’s off by multiple orders of magnitude, if you believe their reports of 30 million sign ups in under a day. https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/6/23786108/threads-internal-...

You mean sign-in's?

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but it's the best ORM currently available for any language. It might not be the fastest, but it is the one that's has the highest level of developer comfort. Using Django is probably the reason why I can stand using SQLAlchemy, it's way to complicated for everything I do and it's just not a nice an experience.

>True, but it's the best ORM currently available for any language. Better than Entity Framework? Consider me impressed.

Depending on what you consider important, and I haven't used Entity since... 2010 I think. For me, those two doesn't compare, the simplicity of the Django ORM makes Entity look dated, complex, like something out of the mainframe era.

Entity is way more flexible, in the sense that you can use in any .Net project really. The Django ORM have no value outside Django, I have yet to anyone use just the ORM, without the rest of the framework.

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#225
post #131

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While that is technically correct, they haven't been running vanilla PHP for quite some time - it's jitted into x86 and run natively on the machine. It's also pretty extensively optimized. And the VM that does the jitting is all C++. Their MySQL deployment is also an internal fork that's been heavily modified for scalability (storage/compute separation, sharding, RocksDB based storage engine instead of InnoDB, Raft f…

Curiously, VKontakte also started from PHP+MySQL but went another way. PHP is compiled ahead of time with something called KittenPHP. It's open-source. For databases they switched some parts to their own bespoke solutions in C that talk with PHP over the memcached protocol. These are called KittenDB (or "engines") for the simple single-purpose ones, and there was also a more generic MySQL replacement in development w…

I’m not sure why someone of facebook’s scale would want JIT instead of AOT. That’s a lot of servers all JITing the same thing that could be done once at build time.

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#226
post #210

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Because it's not ironic. It's obvious. Twitter is just a medium to post stuff. Threads is as well. I can post this on mastodon even. Also: Europe still can't join in on the fun.

EU != Europe. Biggest country in Europe is Russia. Biggest population is Russians.

Just like America is not just the US. But nobody cares…

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#227
post #115

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You mean the company that had to create their two PHP implementations and a translator to C++, to actually scale?

They ended up compiling PHP to assembly! Facebook is a company that will go to ridiculous lengths to avoid rewrites.

Rewriting in hip-tech-du-jour is for startups with lots of funding and little of traction.

Why would a massively successful company toss a stick in their own spokes by tearing the product to ground?

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#228
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How heavily are type annotations and type checking used in the codebase?

It’s fully typed and nothing can be merged that doesn’t pass the type checker

What are the benefits of python with types vs a statically typed language like java, golang, etc?

Re: Backend of Meta Threads is built with Python 3.10

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair point that it's stupid to implement a mostly plain text publishing site that doesn't support linking to any of the text published there. Edit: Someone kindly pointed out that you can see the content in the browser without an account from following a direct link. (You just can't have the app installed or it will open that and drop you on the login page.) This makes me a lot happier with the product!

Linking to it works better than linking to Twitter, in fact, as of this week (Twitter no longer shows replies unless you're logged in...)

Twitter no longer shows anything unless you're logged in. Everything just redirects to a login page.
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