Can't Spell Chernobyl Without Elon (opens in new tab)

(owlbynight.com)

40 pointsowlbynight3y ago26 comments

26 comments

17 comments · 4 top-level

vore3y ago· 6 in thread

I hate to nitpick but,

  We ditched the dial-up modem quite awhile ago, Grandpa. While yes, I guess it’s possible, the idea that Twitter is using remote procedure calls instead of REST immediately felt wrong. It also felt wrong to blame the codebase for an intermittent problem without mentioning an accompanying change.

I think the author has some idea of SOAP or CORBA in mind for RPC rather the more modern Thrift or gRPC solutions that are used extensively everywhere. I don't find it that unbelievable that Twitter would do 1000s of RPCs on the backend to render the home page, but that says basically nothing about if it's the bottleneck or not, after all.

I don't want to defend Elon – far from it – but I think the author doesn't have their ducks quite in a row here.

TeMPOraL3y ago

Or basically, they have a constrained and very mistaken belief that "RPC" is a specific technology. RPC literally means "remote procedure call", and it's typically used to mean just that. It's, for example, a perfectly reasonable observation (and common in HATEOAS threads) that REST APIs these days are typically just RPC over HTTP.

I'm not going to defend Musk, but I find it hard to hate him either, given that every single criticism I see on the Internet is at this level of stupid, or worse. It's really hard to tease out real issues from the torrent of asinine soundbites of critics trying to one up each other.

FartyMcFarter3y ago

> every single criticism I see on the Internet is at this level of stupid, or worse.

That's not at all true. There's plenty of good criticism of Musk out there. It's not hard to find valid things to criticize, from bullying behaviour to overpromising (Tesla FSD) and lots of other stuff.

1 more reply

pwinnski3y ago

Presumably you haven't read this article, which seems to scratch a few different surfaces. If you can read that and still come away thinking "every single criticism [you] see on the Internet is" stupid, well, nobody can help you.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-te...

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vore3y ago

I find it hard to find much redeeming of how he's handled this entire takeover of Twitter: from the attempts to weasel out of buying it due to his own lack of due diligence to the impromptu layoff of half of the workforce, his behavior here stinks to high heaven.

owlbynightOP3y ago

Nitpicking is fine and encouraged, but the engineer himself started the thread by saying, "I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong."

I agree with what you're saying. It was the way Elon made the statement that activated my spidey senses that he was talking out of his ass. Twitter has (had) some of the best engineers in the world.

willnonya3y ago

They may have had some of the best engineers in the world but that is decidedly less important when it's combined with some of the most mediocre mgt in the world.

GoOnThenDoTell3y ago· 5 in thread

Twitter engineers should unionize

Elon Musk would hate that

FartyMcFarter3y ago

They should just leave the company.

At this point I'm not sure why anyone would stay in such a toxic environment unless they can't get any other job.

version_five3y ago

Are there any objective employee sentiment surveys about what they think? Even after all the bad press, I can picture that many are still cautiously optimistic (or just interested to be along for the ride), especially if they previously weren't happy with Twitter's direction. There is a lot of internal rot in tech and a lot of people putting up with it because of their pay. I've worked in jobs where a lot of people would have been happy to see someone come in and shake things up, even if it was disruptive and risky.

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fragmede3y ago

I dunno, an ambitious young eng with no other responsibilities could stay just to see how much they're about to run basically by themselves. what other ways could you get that kind of experience? if the site goes down well ah well that was a difficult task. if they manage to keep the site going though, juggling keeping the shitton of microservices up with a megalomaniac at the helm trying to kill them off. that experience is probably worth a few hundred k in TC at whatever place lets them tell the story and gives them an offer

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elihu3y ago

They could leave, but I think unionizing is a better solution if they can pull it off, and it would set a better precedent for programmers affected by similar things in other companies.

willnonya3y ago

By moat accounts it was a toxic environment before the takeover, now its merely chaotic.

d233y ago· 2 in thread

He’s now made it clear to everyone that he’s an awful person. The stain will not be washed away. Radioactive is a good metaphor.

FartyMcFarter3y ago

People should have realised this when he called someone a pedo without any basis for it.

Better late than never though!

pencilguin3y ago

Last weekend, I learned that his name may be rhymed with "melon". And "felon". Not, strictly, "yellin'", except in a pinch.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos3y ago

Chernobyl going critical and destroying itself was a good thing?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

26 comments

17 comments · 4 top-level

vore3y ago· 6 in thread

I hate to nitpick but,

  We ditched the dial-up modem quite awhile ago, Grandpa. While yes, I guess it’s possible, the idea that Twitter is using remote procedure calls instead of REST immediately felt wrong. It also felt wrong to blame the codebase for an intermittent problem without mentioning an accompanying change.

I don't want to defend Elon – far from it – but I think the author doesn't have their ducks quite in a row here.

TeMPOraL3y ago

FartyMcFarter3y ago

> every single criticism I see on the Internet is at this level of stupid, or worse.

1 more reply

pwinnski3y ago

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-te...

1 more reply

vore3y ago

owlbynightOP3y ago

Nitpicking is fine and encouraged, but the engineer himself started the thread by saying, "I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong."

I agree with what you're saying. It was the way Elon made the statement that activated my spidey senses that he was talking out of his ass. Twitter has (had) some of the best engineers in the world.

willnonya3y ago

They may have had some of the best engineers in the world but that is decidedly less important when it's combined with some of the most mediocre mgt in the world.

GoOnThenDoTell3y ago· 5 in thread

Twitter engineers should unionize

Elon Musk would hate that

FartyMcFarter3y ago

They should just leave the company.

At this point I'm not sure why anyone would stay in such a toxic environment unless they can't get any other job.

version_five3y ago

1 more reply

fragmede3y ago

1 more reply

elihu3y ago

They could leave, but I think unionizing is a better solution if they can pull it off, and it would set a better precedent for programmers affected by similar things in other companies.

willnonya3y ago

By moat accounts it was a toxic environment before the takeover, now its merely chaotic.

d233y ago· 2 in thread

He’s now made it clear to everyone that he’s an awful person. The stain will not be washed away. Radioactive is a good metaphor.

FartyMcFarter3y ago

People should have realised this when he called someone a pedo without any basis for it.

Better late than never though!

pencilguin3y ago

Last weekend, I learned that his name may be rhymed with "melon". And "felon". Not, strictly, "yellin'", except in a pinch.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos3y ago

Chernobyl going critical and destroying itself was a good thing?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse