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Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

jan.moesen.nu

31–40 of 85 posts

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#31
post #27
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift was designed for coding user-facing applications, not internet utilities.

Swift is a general purpose language. I fail to see what it lacks.

Network latency and distribution notwithstanding, one of Go's core goals is low-overhead concurrency. I'm not sure how GCD compares in Swift because I haven't spent a ton of time in it yet, but that could be a point of contention, particularly in a web scraper.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#34
post #12
post #8

Not at all sure why it's relevant which programming languages they use at Apple. Is this considered interesting since it somehow proves the mainstream adoption of Go? Or since Apple, a competitor of Google's in cell phones, are using one of Google's technologies? Or what? The takeaway for me was that Apple has a whole /8 subnet to themselves. That's just ... immense, for a single company. Gaah. EDIT: Mis-typed the ne…

A /24 for a company of their size is nothing - they actually have the entire 17.0.0.0/8 to themselves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_addres...

Yeah, that was what I meant, brain error. Thanks, I edited my comment.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#35
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldnt someone at apple use Go. Servers/scripts/etc are not their usual focus and they dont really have an internal language that fits better. Go is pretty good at this kind of things.

I like Go, but fail to see how Swift and C++14 don't fit the bill as well. EDIT: changed to a more constructive comment.

"I like X, but i fail to see why Y and Z don't fit the bill as well."

Try repeating your point for any order of X, Y and Z, and you might realize it isn't really a valid reason for them to have used Swift or C++ instead.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#36
post #8

Not at all sure why it's relevant which programming languages they use at Apple. Is this considered interesting since it somehow proves the mainstream adoption of Go? Or since Apple, a competitor of Google's in cell phones, are using one of Google's technologies? Or what? The takeaway for me was that Apple has a whole /8 subnet to themselves. That's just ... immense, for a single company. Gaah. EDIT: Mis-typed the ne…

Back around 1990 I had a class /16 and I was just a 14 year old. Before the web explosion it was a different time. Domains used to be free back then too!

I was still playing with toy cars back then, but how did people lose those IPs? Were they revoked?

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#37
post #8

Not at all sure why it's relevant which programming languages they use at Apple. Is this considered interesting since it somehow proves the mainstream adoption of Go? Or since Apple, a competitor of Google's in cell phones, are using one of Google's technologies? Or what? The takeaway for me was that Apple has a whole /8 subnet to themselves. That's just ... immense, for a single company. Gaah. EDIT: Mis-typed the ne…

Maybe the poster expected Apple to eat their own dogfood? They have ObjC and Swift, and Google is one of their major competitors, in mobile space yes as well as pop-language space.

A /24 is also only 256 addresses, so really unremarkable. I think you are reading it backwards. MIT has an /8, that's the large one.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#38
post #13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift was designed for coding user-facing applications, not internet utilities.

Can you explain what that means? Which language features is Swift missing?

It's a perfectly reasonable general purpose language. However, it doesn't have a low-overhead green thread mechanism, and the standard library has no particular emphasis on network tools.

Even as an outspoken critic of go, I recognize that it has quite a strong networking toolset.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#39
post #27
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift was designed for coding user-facing applications, not internet utilities.

Swift is a general purpose language. I fail to see what it lacks.

So are Python and Ruby, but most people will agree that those are unsuitable for certain types of highly concurrent and performance sensitive network applications.

Using the right language for a particular domain can save you a lot of headache. Go is open source and a relatively proven choice, compared to Swift.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#40
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol,i'm not sure why anybody would be sacked because "Google product" ;) however,I wonder why they didnt use Swift,and it's a question.

It's not as mature. Doesn't have the library and third party support. Does Apple use Mac OS for all its servers? They use Azure for some servers? That would imply they need the language to be cross-platform.

I can vouch for this-I've been trying to import CommonCrypto, and instead of just typing "import CommonCrypto" I have to do some sort of "bridging header" stuff with a .h file that just seems totally backwards to me (I don't have Cocoa or Obj-C experience). It feels very not quite ready for prime time.
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