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I don't have an open source example; I tend to actively avoid such projects, and so I tend to accumulate lists of the ones that seem well engineered rather than

I don't have an open source example; I tend to actively avoid such projects, and so I tend to accumulate lists of the ones that seem well engineered rather than the opposite. The Quora app, though: If I'm writing a reasonably long answer and I delete a paragraph, it can take more than 10 seconds to complete. There's some profound inability to understand algorithms in there somewhere, I can guarantee it. There was just a headline on Hacker News a few days ago about a "reject!" function, if I remember correctly, that ended up with an n^2 algorithm for several major Ruby releases because someone fixing a bug didn't understand the consequence of their change. I don't have the link, though. EDIT to fix the name of the Ruby function and to add the link. [1] Thanks to user nighthawk454 who dug it up! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13691303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13691303

nighthawk454 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13691303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13691303
- SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
  Yes, this link! Thanks!
Apocryphon 10y ago
Given that the Quora interview process is reputably difficult [0], and not lacking in algorithms questions [1][2], this is quite a puzzling situation. [0] https://www.quora.com/Which-companies-have-really-hard-algorithmic-math-interview-questions-beyond-Google-level/answer/Jerry-Ma-2 https://www.quora.com/Which-companies-have-really-hard-algor... [1] https://www.quora.com/challenges https://www.quora.com/challenges [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-test-you-have-to-pass-to-work-at-quora-silicon-valleys-hot-new-86-million-startup-2010-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-test-you-have-to-pa...
- SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
  Interesting. I wonder what the history of their mobile app is, though? It feels like it's a hybrid app, and it feels like it's developed iOS-first, Android-as-afterthought, so it may be the ugly stepchild of the team that gets no attention. "Does it build on Android? Ship it!" Also, if it is hybrid, it may be a JavaScript team -- and JavaScript still has that "top developers love to hate it" aura [1], so it may be that some of the least talented Quora developers populate the team? (Apologies to the Quora app team, but ... 10 seconds to delete a paragraph?) The worst of the problems seem to be when I'm also using the SwiftKey keyboard, so they may not see them internally. Somewhere along the way they're doing something pathological, though, because SwiftKey works like lightning in other apps, and only in the Quora app can get bogged down and end up so slow that I have to disable it and use the standard keyboard just to type anything at all. There's also a bug where I sometimes can't hit enter after a link I've pasted, and again I have to switch to another keyboard. SwiftKey may be reacting to notifications that the text has changed, for instance, and Quora is sending 200 change notifications, one for each character changed, and then SwiftKey is querying the entire source document again each time... Or some such. Don't know. It's not just SwiftKey related issues, though. Whatever they were using for rich text editing has been broken in different creative ways every few months, where edits wouldn't take, or what you're actually seeing would vary from what gets posted, or you can't edit the link text, or you can't GET OUT of the link text, so all the new text you type ends up part of the link, or ... It's been broken in so many ways that I've lost count. A recent bug I encountered was when I was pulling the text down to get to the top of what I'd written, I scrolled it down once too often, and that triggered a "refresh" ("drag down from the top" to refresh) which lost all of my text. Sigh. The Quora app is really in need of a solid team experienced in app development, robust data handling, and proper UI behaviors. If it has competitive programmers working on it, they're solving the wrong problems. [1] I used to be guilty of this, but JavaScript got better, linters now help prevent the worst legacy JavaScript issues, I changed my opinion in large part, and I use TypeScript now anyway. :)
  - trollsonson 10y ago
    So you avoid open source projects, base your opinion on some crappy forum app, and when confronted with the fact that the crappy app in question was in fact from an 'algo interview' company, you write this long winded word salad about text editing on your phone. You have no freaking clue what you're talking about. I feel sorry for your colleagues, and hope your trip back out of the valley is a pleasant one.

nighthawk454 10y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13691303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13691303

SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
Yes, this link! Thanks!

Apocryphon 10y ago

Given that the Quora interview process is reputably difficult [0], and not lacking in algorithms questions [1][2], this is quite a puzzling situation. [0] https://www.quora.com/Which-companies-have-really-hard-algorithmic-math-interview-questions-beyond-Google-level/answer/Jerry-Ma-2 https://www.quora.com/Which-companies-have-really-hard-algor... [1] https://www.quora.com/challenges https://www.quora.com/challenges [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-test-you-have-to-pass-to-work-at-quora-silicon-valleys-hot-new-86-million-startup-2010-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-test-you-have-to-pa...

SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
Interesting. I wonder what the history of their mobile app is, though? It feels like it's a hybrid app, and it feels like it's developed iOS-first, Android-as-afterthought, so it may be the ugly stepchild of the team that gets no attention. "Does it build on Android? Ship it!" Also, if it is hybrid, it may be a JavaScript team -- and JavaScript still has that "top developers love to hate it" aura [1], so it may be that some of the least talented Quora developers populate the team? (Apologies to the Quora app team, but ... 10 seconds to delete a paragraph?) The worst of the problems seem to be when I'm also using the SwiftKey keyboard, so they may not see them internally. Somewhere along the way they're doing something pathological, though, because SwiftKey works like lightning in other apps, and only in the Quora app can get bogged down and end up so slow that I have to disable it and use the standard keyboard just to type anything at all. There's also a bug where I sometimes can't hit enter after a link I've pasted, and again I have to switch to another keyboard. SwiftKey may be reacting to notifications that the text has changed, for instance, and Quora is sending 200 change notifications, one for each character changed, and then SwiftKey is querying the entire source document again each time... Or some such. Don't know. It's not just SwiftKey related issues, though. Whatever they were using for rich text editing has been broken in different creative ways every few months, where edits wouldn't take, or what you're actually seeing would vary from what gets posted, or you can't edit the link text, or you can't GET OUT of the link text, so all the new text you type ends up part of the link, or ... It's been broken in so many ways that I've lost count. A recent bug I encountered was when I was pulling the text down to get to the top of what I'd written, I scrolled it down once too often, and that triggered a "refresh" ("drag down from the top" to refresh) which lost all of my text. Sigh. The Quora app is really in need of a solid team experienced in app development, robust data handling, and proper UI behaviors. If it has competitive programmers working on it, they're solving the wrong problems. [1] I used to be guilty of this, but JavaScript got better, linters now help prevent the worst legacy JavaScript issues, I changed my opinion in large part, and I use TypeScript now anyway. :)
- trollsonson 10y ago
  So you avoid open source projects, base your opinion on some crappy forum app, and when confronted with the fact that the crappy app in question was in fact from an 'algo interview' company, you write this long winded word salad about text editing on your phone. You have no freaking clue what you're talking about. I feel sorry for your colleagues, and hope your trip back out of the valley is a pleasant one.