Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ywoski 1223 days ago
Almost. We had a UI library on Android that was stuck on an alpha version of the library for three or so years after the library had shipped.

Upgrading the library broke many tests across the org, and no one wanted to own going in and getting each team to fix it. Eventually, the library had a v2 release, and people started to care about being able to use it.

Ultimately, they just forked the current release and appended a v2 to the package name.

Not the norm, but it happens. The monorepo works for Google, but I wouldn't recommend it for most organizations; we have a ton of custom tooling and headcount to keep things running smoothly.

From the mobile side, it makes it super easy for us to share code across the 50+ apps we have, manage vulnerabilities quicker, and collaborate easily across teams.
2 comments
coryrc 1223 days ago
> The monorepo works for Google

Does it? Or is it stopping Google from supporting products which only make millions in revenue because of the massive burden of continually updating?

link
ywoski 1223 days ago
Oh geez, that's an entirely different can of worms that isn't related to the monorepo.

Most products at Google are not dropped because the monorepo makes it difficult for them to support - and I'm not sure how it would or how you got to that association. Also, plenty of products that are killed are not in the monorepo.

They are usually dropped due to a mix of things, but a big part is just better product management.

link
8note 1223 days ago
Better project management as in, somebody politicked their way into owning a replacement for a currently running thing?

The implemented product, as well as the vision for something like inbox or Google music is still way better than Gmail and YouTube music as the end user

link
KptMarchewa 1223 days ago
Fixed that:

>They are usually dropped due to a mix of things, but a big part is just worse product management.

Google is now at the point where their new projects fail (like Stadia) because they killed old products. Killing products has second-order effects.

link
mook 1223 days ago
> Ultimately, they just forked the current release and appended a v2 to the package name.

Hmm, does that explain the golang module versioning requirement where v2 must have a different name?

link
rfoo 1223 days ago
Yes.
link