Couldn't agree with this article more. I built the biggest social network to come out of India from 2006-2009. It was like Twitter but over text messaging. At it's peak it had 50M+ users and sent 1B+ text messages in a day. When I started, the app was on a single machine. I didn't know a lot about databases and scaling. Didn't even know what database indexes are and what are their benefits. Just built the basic produ…
This is probably because implicitly made available decisions from the get go. For example, if you had chosen MongoDB instead of MySQL, the story would be different. Ditto if say, Meteor instead of Java.
Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
71–80 of 285 posts
Re: Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
#72Couldn't agree with this article more. I built the biggest social network to come out of India from 2006-2009. It was like Twitter but over text messaging. At it's peak it had 50M+ users and sent 1B+ text messages in a day. When I started, the app was on a single machine. I didn't know a lot about databases and scaling. Didn't even know what database indexes are and what are their benefits. Just built the basic produ…
> I know of absolutely no service which failed because it couldn't scale. First focus on building what people love. If people love your product, they will put up with the growing pains (e.g. Twitter used to be down a lot!). They haven't failed (yet), but I think gitlab.com would be a lot bigger if they scaled faster. Lots of people have been rejected using it because it was too slow.
Re: Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
#73Couldn't agree with this article more. I built the biggest social network to come out of India from 2006-2009. It was like Twitter but over text messaging. At it's peak it had 50M+ users and sent 1B+ text messages in a day. When I started, the app was on a single machine. I didn't know a lot about databases and scaling. Didn't even know what database indexes are and what are their benefits. Just built the basic produ…
> I know of absolutely no service which failed because it couldn't scale. First focus on building what people love. If people love your product, they will put up with the growing pains (e.g. Twitter used to be down a lot!). They haven't failed (yet), but I think gitlab.com would be a lot bigger if they scaled faster. Lots of people have been rejected using it because it was too slow.
Re: Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I know of absolutely no service which failed because it couldn't scale. I would say this is because of the simple fact of visibility and adoption. You've probably never heard of these services probably because they ground to a halt with a mere 1000 users, so they never got mainstream enough to be recognised as a viable service. It is a bit like how no one remembers the dozens of people who failed to achieve sustain…
You're refusing to learn from someone who lived it. I also know of zero services which failed because they couldn't scale their technology. But I know of 100s that failed because they couldn't get enough users or usage. Your example about the DB tables is exactly the trap to avoid while you are iterating rapidly to try and find product/market fit.
I didn't call out directly not the DB tables point. This kind of premature optimization is a huge red flag and I would anyone I am advising to avoid it.
Re: Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
#75Couldn't agree with this article more. I built the biggest social network to come out of India from 2006-2009. It was like Twitter but over text messaging. At it's peak it had 50M+ users and sent 1B+ text messages in a day. When I started, the app was on a single machine. I didn't know a lot about databases and scaling. Didn't even know what database indexes are and what are their benefits. Just built the basic produ…
I would argue that you can earn lifetime with a healthy life style. I remember to have read a study that measured the average difference between healthy and unhealthy life styles with 14 years.
If you spend 1 day a week more for a healthy lifestyle (exercise, self cooking, enough sleep, little stress, enough recreation time) for 40 years you have earned ~9 years life time.
And I would argue that those 40 years are more enjoyable.
Re: Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
#76As a rule of thumb, start-ups need to be more agile as they are mostly exploring new territory, trying to create new value or re-scope valueless things into valuable things.
Larger companies operate at a scale where minor efficiency improvements can mean millions of dollars and thus require more people to do the same thing, but better. Individualistic thinking on new directions to go is not needed nor appreciated.
Of course there are excepttions. The question boils down to whether or not the ladder is on the right walk before charging up it.
In rare circumstances you can do both. Either the problem is trivial, or the problem becomes trivial because you have a super expert. 10x programmers who habitually write efficient code without needing to think too much have more bandwidth for things like strategy and direction. The car they drive is both more agile, accelerates faster, has a higher max speed, etc...but even this can't move mountains. The problem an individual can solve, no matter the level of genius, is still small in scope conpared to the power of movements and collective action and intention.
The most poweful skill is to seed these movements and direct them.
Abstractly, this is what VCs look for in founders and also a reason why very smart and technical people feel short-changed that they are not appreciated for their 10x skills. (Making 500k instead of millions/billions) They may have 10x skills, but there are whole orders of magnitude they can be blind to.
Re: Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
#77Taking a completely blasé approach to efficiency is potentially as dangerous as becoming hyper-focused on it. Not all businesses become roaring successes, and those who achieve moderate success often don't get the resources to fix deep-seated performance or architectural issues (either via engineering and/or throwing hardware at it.) Eventually these technical woes can completely halt momentum and I've seen it even d…
I agree with your comment. BTW, the phrase you're looking for is "deep seated", not "deep seeded".
Re: Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
#78Couldn't agree with this article more. I built the biggest social network to come out of India from 2006-2009. It was like Twitter but over text messaging. At it's peak it had 50M+ users and sent 1B+ text messages in a day. When I started, the app was on a single machine. I didn't know a lot about databases and scaling. Didn't even know what database indexes are and what are their benefits. Just built the basic produ…
need much longer story if you could share. I's also Indian and Mine died at about 500k due to my focus on scalability.
My biggest learning is Functional->Fast->Pretty from the product POV and Launch as soon as you can from an Engineer's POV.
Some more details on my blog: https://anandprakash.net/2016/10/28/how-to-build-a-business-...
Most of this was written in sleepless nights when we had a baby. So do not expect a super artistic flair ;)
Re: Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
#79I liked the article and agree with its premise. But as a side question, why do developers use so many parenthetical expressions? Those ideas (like this one, which happens to add nothing) are often either throwaway statements (like this one) or are by themselves complete thoughts that should be a separate sentence. (I see this so often in posts written by devs.)
Re: Does it scale? Who cares (2011)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I know of absolutely no service which failed because it couldn't scale. I would say this is because of the simple fact of visibility and adoption. You've probably never heard of these services probably because they ground to a halt with a mere 1000 users, so they never got mainstream enough to be recognised as a viable service. It is a bit like how no one remembers the dozens of people who failed to achieve sustain…
You're refusing to learn from someone who lived it. I also know of zero services which failed because they couldn't scale their technology. But I know of 100s that failed because they couldn't get enough users or usage. Your example about the DB tables is exactly the trap to avoid while you are iterating rapidly to try and find product/market fit.
I've been part of many projects that couldn't scale because lack of forethought meant there was a nasty implicit O(n^2) thing going on when it could have easily been designed to be O(n log n).
Almost all of these projects were killed with CYA hand waving about "just not fast enough".