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openquery 3 days ago

I've always wondered - how can I as a non X engineer be sure that the code on GH is actually deployed on their servers?

ml-anon 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

It’s not. The last “algorithm” release was a random grab bag of code which existed in some of the Twitter repo that might have been tangentially related to recommendations/feed.

Source: worked at Twitter in ML/recsys.

TheAceOfHearts 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Anon, when I was looking through this source dump I saw a huge range of timeouts used in various services, do you know if there's any writeup or explanation as to how the engineering team settled on those values?

anonym29 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

3np 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is not believable. It's not syntactically valid Python.

https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/c54bec0d4e029f...

0xDEAFBEAD 3 days ago | parent [-]

True, but on the other hand, it's not exactly surprising if they're redacting details related to spam detection, algorithmic manipulation, foreign interference, and other such adversarial phenomena.

(I'm not necessarily saying that's what's going on. But I do seem to recall that when reddit open-sourced, they deliberately chose to redact info related to vote manipulation/spam detection/etc.)

3np 3 days ago | parent [-]

Do you also believe it plausible that aside from redacted parts, this module has not been changed in any way on production servers for over 2 years (last commit is spring 2023)?

0xDEAFBEAD 3 days ago | parent [-]

That's a fair point, it looks like they aren't making much effort to keep this up to date.

jibal 14 hours ago | parent [-]

i.e., it's not production code and the guy who said it is and claimed to work at Twitter was lying, as previously pointed out. If only some people would read for comprehension before commenting ...

0xDEAFBEAD 13 hours ago | parent [-]

It could be old production code.

jibal 9 hours ago | parent [-]

That's obviously not what "production code" means here. You just said that "Do you also believe it plausible that aside from redacted parts, this module has not been changed in any way on production servers for over 2 years (last commit is spring 2023)?" was a good point, so you know what is meant. And further up in the thread there's "I've always wondered - how can I as a non X engineer be sure that the code on GH is actually deployed on their servers?". I just made the point about ignoring the context and then you do it again. That is indistinguishable from trolling. Feh. No more responses from me.

jibal 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"..." all over the place in 2 year old code is production code?

And people who work at X don't say they work at Twitter.

majewsky 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This does not contradict what GP said.

kklisura 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

~65k lines added, ~3k removed in span of more than 2 years. Do you guys do anything there?

jsheard 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Even if this is the actual production code at this very second, it won't match prod for long if they continue this pattern of only dropping an update every two years or so.

close04 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Honest question. Would you even dare to say you work at Twitter and then spill the beans on some very public lie or misdirection? It’s trivial to match your writing style between your HN comments and your work emails to identify you. Musk is famously a very petty, bitter, and vindictive person with an easy to bruise ego.

I don’t have any knowledge of the reality inside Twitter but I also have no reason to believe the company would be transparent given the many past controversies, or that any one employee would be able to look at this code which has obvious redactions and say “everything else is definitely 100% prod” and not exactly what GP suggested.

huflungdung 3 days ago | parent [-]

[dead]

GuinansEyebrows 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Source: I work at Twitter.

Please stop

anonym29 3 days ago | parent [-]

edit: disregard, misinterpreted

wtfwhateven 3 days ago | parent [-]

because the person you replied to said they worked (past tense) at twitter, unlike you who says they [currently] work (present tense) at twitter

why would they tell someone not working at twitter anymore to stop working at twitter? and how does that amount to "biased, hypocritical, one-way persecution"

random3 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t think that’s the point of open sourcing things, in general

openquery 3 days ago | parent [-]

I agree in general it isn't. But in this case Musk claimed that was the point of open-sourcing the algorithm. Transparency on what they are or are not suppressing.

cma 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

When Tesla "open sourced" their patents, they required companies taking them up on it to, not reciprocally, not copy their "designs". So you get access to their patents in exchange for vague restrictions broader than the patent or copyright system.

random3 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Oh, I see. Well, purely on his claim:bs ratio, I'd too take than with a grain of salt :)

h1fra 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

you can't, and it's 100% sure it's not this code running in prod

jjordan 3 days ago | parent [-]

100% huh? That's a bold statement with no supporting evidence.

viraptor 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Already posted above: https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/c54bec0d4e029f...

It's redacted.

jibal 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Claiming that there's no supporting evidence is a bold (and obviously false) claim when the code is 2 years old and heavily redacted.

Pxtl 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Sounds like the right tone when discussing a Musk project.

gchamonlive 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How can you be sure that the machine code that was generated from your C source files actually match the behaviour encoded in them?

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...

3 days ago | parent | prev [-]
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