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An Inside Look At eBay's Technology

Posted by kdawson on from the APIs-for-free dept.

endychavez writes with a CIO Insight profile giving a look inside eBay and its technology platform. The company has 40,000 outside developers working to increase its value and efficiency. From the article: "'They are way ahead of other companies' in terms of supporting developers, says one application builder... 'This a new wave of business,' says [another developer's marketing director]. 'eBay is a supplier, a marketing channel and a competitor. It's a weird arrangement.' ... 'If you can't split it, you can't scale it,' says Eric Billingsley, head of eBay Research Labs. 'We've made ourselves masters of virtualization.' ... eBay is able to publish a new version of its site every two weeks, adding 100,000 lines of code, all while in use."

7 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. The whole operation is fueled by... by bealzabobs_youruncle · · Score: 4, Funny

    a huge furnace that burns large piles of money, explaining the ever increasing fee structure.

    1. Re:The whole operation is fueled by... by Pope · · Score: 2, Funny

      With frequent JavaScript injections that slow the entire site loading and rendering, on Safari at least.

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  2. A++++++++ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    A+++++++ good article, would read again

  3. eBay vs. WoW by Tabernaque86 · · Score: 2, Funny

    eBay is able to publish a new version of its site every two weeks, adding 100,000 lines of code, all while in use. What, no Patch Tuesdays?
    1. Re:eBay vs. WoW by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 4, Funny

      What, no Patch Tuesdays?

      Nope, they have Patch-Every-Other Tuesdays instead.

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  4. 40,000 developers?? by NineNine · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do these guys know that you can use stuff like CGI to make dynamic web sites, with databases? With 40,000 developers, and 100,000 lines of code every two weeks, somebody should tell them that they don't have to code each and every single page by hand...

  5. 40,000 developers with 100,000 lines of new code.. by jasonhamilton · · Score: 4, Funny

    That means 2.5 lines of code per developer every two weeks!

    Fun and games aside, what's the big deal with upgrading a live site? I write software that builds and packages itself and then deploys it's own code to itself in production while it's running. No issues here...

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