Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by polyrand 474 days ago
I remember listening to a Syntax FM[0] with Zack Jackson from ByteDance, which mentioned this framework briefly. Some quotes and notes from that part of the podcast:

- All ByteDance products, even native apps, are web-based

- They have an in-house framework called "Lynx" which is essentially their version of React Native[1]

- "All apps are Lynx apps. Everything is a Lynx app. It's all backed off the same stack."

- This approach allows them to maintain a unified architecture while having specialized teams focus on different aspects (algorithms, compiler, kernel, etc.)

[0]: https://syntax.fm/show/860/module-federation-microfrontends-...

[1]: The one being released, in the podcast they confirmed they would be open-sourcing it this year
1 comments
suzakus 473 days ago
I work at ByteDance (though not for long). Most of the "sexy" part of the app is native, or C++ crossplatform for things that would normally be in C++. I'm not sure I'm allowed to share what Lynx is used on, but it's a small subset of the app.
link
suzakus 473 days ago
I went to watch the podcast – he's heavily overplaying how much cross platform web dev is used on the native platforms. He doesn't seem to be in the biggest channels for both iOS and Android developers (the largest 'IOS'/'Android' release/global channels).
link
NoahKAndrews 473 days ago
Makes sense, the announcement blog said it was only specific screens, such as search.
link
polyrand 473 days ago
Thanks. What do you mean with "native" (vs. C++)?

What I assumed from the podcast is that there's a lot of internal reusable tools in C++, and the web-based stuff is mostly about the UI layer.

Is there a lot of WASM to use both at the same time?

link
suzakus 473 days ago
Native as in Swift/Objective C (iOS) or Kotlin/Java (Android). Probably 99% of the UI (and lower layers, outside of specialty cases!) is based in that. C++ is used for typical high performance cases; e.g. Video rendering (though there's more than that).

There's a lot of internal tools. I don't know what they're written in. I would not be surprised if it's Lynx, but I'm a mobile developer on the TikTok app, and haven't ever looked into it.

I haven't come across any WASM in my time here, but I'm not in a position to declare that it doesn't exist.

link