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Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

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Re: Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

#61

Post by canucker2016 »

adwn wrote: post #50
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber actually had a pretty reasonable explanation for their app being huge when their rather large app size made the rounds several years ago. Turns out localization takes a lot of space. I wonder how much of LinkedIn’s insane size can be attributed to that vs just lazy coding

> Turns out localization takes a lot of space. Does localization involve more than a few hundred strings per locale, all of which should compress really well? Maybe add in some localized icon sets, but much fewer than the number of supported locales. I'm not saying you're (or they're) wrong, I'm genuinely curious.

This "localization" also includes the code for online payment methods available in a particular locale.

So for the traveler, when they arrive in a new area that's supported by Uber, the app will just work instead of a "Please wait while we download the necessary payment SDK for your current location..." notification.

You didn't just download Uber "for USA" - you've downloaded Uber for "all countries where Uber exists" just in case you might leave your home area and travel a location that Uber operates.

Testing matrix must be complex...

Re: Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

#62

Post by m463 »

vasco wrote: post #44
m463 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the grumpy ones You know, grumpiness really is a thing. I wonder if it should be treated as a symptom like left arm tingling before a heart attack. A call to make some serious changes.

Meh, developers are people too. They are right and they are wrong. I've seen some guys who are proud of having the grumpy persona, which is really just a nice word for "I know better than the other people I work with" and it's not a great attitude. Engineering choices all have trade-offs yet the grumpy guys always frame it as "my way or everything will collapse later".

Sorry, should have been more clear.

It is when you - a normal, well adjusted engineer - realize you are feeling grumpy about something.

It might be a sign to explore what is really going on.

Re: Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

#63

Post by rand846633 »

thrnkkm wrote: post #43
OtomotO wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a perfect example of why the problem isn’t... Depends on how you frame the problem. If you declare the problem is that although batteries became way more efficient you don't get out more hours because they are wasted, then the story is a different one. Same when you don't have an abundance in RAM but are forced to use certain programs and applications. I have 64GB Ram these days, colleagues at clients of mi…

It goes opposite way as well. I have workstation with 128GB ram with a few terabytes of storage, I can run full stack with everything in single machine. I also have VM snapshots, versioning etc... There is simple script that installs all deps and setup dev machine. My colleagues have tiny Macs with 16GB. To accommodate them, we had to split mono dev setup into separate K8S cluster. On single machine I could easily sp…

> And spinning up secondary dev instances is not permitted due to high AWS cost.

Time for a new employment opportunity.

Re: Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

#64

Post by rob74 »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #53
rob74 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, I would like to see some stats how much of their traffic is via the app and how much is via the website. Of course many people have LinkedIn profiles, but are there really so many "hardcore" users who install the app? So maybe the app just isn't that important for them in the grand scheme of things, and the bloat is more the result of neglect than of hundreds of developers working (specifically) on the a…

The mobile web version is intentionally feature degraded, with occasional pop-up nags pushing the app. For that reason, I’d guess a lot of people are using the mobile app.

Ah! I know that from Yahoo Mail (the email address I still use for historical reasons). I even tried the app once, saw that it was actually worse than the website (which is not feature degraded as far as I can tell, at least not the features I use), and since then I just curse and ignore the nags...

Re: Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

#65

Post by gruturo »

pcl wrote: post #34
eptcyka wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last thing I want is my phone or apps on it to automatically change locale depending on the GPS location.

Google Flights does this. It’s so frustrating. It displays prices in local currency, no matter how many times you go to the menu and pick a currency. And it always uses local calendar alignment, which is “fun”.

A few years ago I moved to Germany, not speaking a word of the local language.

Imagine my joy when every google site helpfully switched to German, ignoring my browser's accept-language.

Thankfully some googler must have been also annoyed by this at some point, so there is a somewhat little-known URL: google.com/ncr (No Country Redirect) which will revert everything to US English. Doesn't help if you wanted to default to any different locale, but it was perfect for me. Thank you unknown annoyed googler.

Re: Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

#66

Post by gnicholas »

Another question: why does the feed reload when I go 'back' to it? This happens on the website and the app whenever I click into a link and then go back to the feed. It just spontaneously reloads! If I wanted to comment on the link or even just like the post, I can't (unless I remember who posted it, go to their profile, and go to their recent activity, which I almost never have the patience to do).

I uninstalled the app recently because I find it maddening that I can't get notifications about comments on my own posts unless I also accept notifications for 'person X and person Y like such-and-such random post'.

I find it maddening and unjustifiable that these two types of behaviors would be categorized under the same notification toggle. Then I remember LI is now owned by MS, and it makes more sense.

Re: Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

#67

Post by rvba »

rob74 wrote: post #46
gertop wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are likely 100s-1000s of app developers involved in the LinkedIn app I don't understand why you'd need 1000 or even 100 developers to produce such app. It's a CRUD frontend for a backend that already exists. What am I missing? Are you counting the developers of all the third party libs they integrate?

Furthermore, I would like to see some stats how much of their traffic is via the app and how much is via the website. Of course many people have LinkedIn profiles, but are there really so many "hardcore" users who install the app? So maybe the app just isn't that important for them in the grand scheme of things, and the bloat is more the result of neglect than of hundreds of developers working (specifically) on the a…

Id argue that the people who pay for linkedin are the ones who use the app.

So the group of users can be small, but those can be the "whales".

Also recruiters and HR who use paid features also probably use the app.

Re: Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

#68

Post by lifthrasiir »

vladxyz wrote: post #54
lifthrasiir wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think App Store's app thinning doesn't care about locales, so any such attempt should download an additional localization file from Uber's servers. While not technically impossible, it will mean that downloading an app is no longer sufficient to use the app; it should also go through the initial (or incremental) download, which was significant in the case of Uber's case (1 MB per locale according to the blog AFAIK)…

I mean, does it matter for an app like Uber? It's not a document editor, you'd never use it without an internet connection.

You can still use it without waiting for a MB of the localization file to be downloaded. (Maybe that can make much more sense to, say, social media apps where you will have to download as much data to do anything.)

Re: Why is the LinkedIn app almost half a gig?

#69

Post by rvba »

YouWhy wrote: post #14

TL;DR: There're few global incentives for a LinkedIn app developer to make an overall good app, as opposed to making their PM happy. In detail: This is how death by a thousand papercuts looks like. I've had the (dubious) pleasure of observing a roughly similar BigTech app project. There are likely 100s-1000s of app developers involved in the LinkedIn app, and they are likely under immense pressure to Just Ship Alread…

1) where are the architects? Arent they supposed to deal with such issues?

2) nobody measures such metrics: size, bloat, speed...

3) where are the code reviews?

4) nobody checks if the same library, same icon pack are not attached twice?

5) 1000 people? What do they even do? I suspect a lot of slides, politics and "high visibility projects"

Meanwhile the product suffers. Companies sure talk a lot about ecology, then we get apps like that.

Not related to Libkedin, but what is the carbon footprint of all electron-based apps that take hundreds of megabytes and gigantic amount of processor time?

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