
Scaling to Millions of Users - liquidise
https://blog.benroux.me/lessons-for-scaling-to-a-million-users/
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falsedan
I totally disagree. There's 2 secrets to scaling to millions of users:

1\. You aren't going to have millions of users so any work you do to support
it is stopping you from delivering features that will make your existing 10
clients happier.

2\. Write code that can be replaced (i.e. design for change). When preparing a
complex new system, discuss how it could be ripped out later, and what
assumptions it has about other systems (which will restrict them when they
want to change), and what assumptions the new system's users will have of it.

Be pragmatic: it's better to write something that's a bit of a hassle to
replace later, rather than something with a perfect interface that can have
drop-in replacements deployed effortlessly, if you can get the former out the
door way faster.

~~~
liquidise
1\. Most companies will never have a million+ users. But what happens when
yours does? This is the experience i have been living for the last year, and i
am sharing the challenges that come with that growth.

2\. Write code that is maintainable. I don't advocate solving for problems
that don't exist [1], but i cannot agree with building code specifically so
that it is readily disposable.

[1]: [https://blog.benroux.me/good-problems-to-
have/](https://blog.benroux.me/good-problems-to-have/)

~~~
pbreit
Getting a million users is infinitely harder than scaling a system to handle a
million users. Most systems could run comfortably on a Raspberry Pi.

I don't think the suggestion is to make sure your code is disposable. It's
that you need to code for now and it's difficult to predict which code may
become a candidate for disposal.

~~~
user5994461
> Getting a million users is infinitely harder than scaling a system to handle
> a million users.

Depends on your context.

When you work at an established company, it may already have millions of users
and any new project/change/feature may grab millions of them easily.

~~~
pbreit
The audience here skews heavily to newer, smaller companies.

