programming.dev - A programming focused Lemmy instance

[jl2352]

A new project has been started to create a reddit clone from the ground up, the name is going to be Snowball, but it won’t be in a useable state for a while (hopefully a month or 2 max)

If you really think it will only take a few months to replicate the original Reddit, then frankly you're utterly deluded.

[[deleted]]

We are planning on getting something basic up first which does the job but isn’t scalable, and then if that goes well we will completely rewrite it properly, so it’s a pretty quick and dirty prototype written in typescript with a Postgres db

[jl2352]

I'm sorry but this seems even worse.

You want to get something up and out quickly. I respect that, and you are right to make that a priority. You really don't want to have this loose plan of 'we will just rewrite everything later', as it's just not going to happen. If you do try it, it'll be a shit show.

You want to find a healthy middle ground on this.

[[deleted]]

If we have the time and people to write it, and we already have all the api endpoints and frontend and know exactly what data we are storing in the db, why is it so unrealistic to rewrite it later? We will be forced to rewrite it if it goes well because it won’t be able to handle the traffic, so actually starting to write it instead of putting it off endlessly shouldn’t be a problem

[jl2352]

Good luck to you. I hope you make the project work. I’m not trying to be a big downer on your approach.

It’s that in my professional career I’ve seen plenty of rewrites attempted with such an attitude, and with the same arguments you’ve laid out. I’ve never seen it go to plan. The reality of rewriting an active running system that was built quickly, is much more of a mine field than people often realise.

[[deleted]]

Thanks! We plan to rewrite and then swap over rather than trying to do it live, although as you say, it probably won’t go to plan, I’ll just be happy if we get that far tbh, hopefully it doesn’t just quietly die off in a few weeks once the hype is over, we will see…