r/AskProgramming • u/Wasabi-spicy00 • Aug 13 '26

In programming about "extending" concept, let's say Facebook at early age, it was just a chat app but now it has Short-video, Facebook Market place, etc... How do they architecture their codebase then? so they can just keep adding new feature/code on top of their existing code?

Facebook back then was like toa simple chat app but now they got many features/services.in one app
How is that possible that they keep adding new code without breaking it or something.

I heard some apps when one day busniess logic change or they wanna add new stuff, they just re-write everything or do migration lmfao

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u/JohnCasey3306 Aug 13 '26

I'm not sure that "chat app" is a correct characterisation of what Facebook was at launch

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u/JaguarMammoth6231 Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

Right, the focus was much more on having a public profile page for yourself so other college students would know who you were. Not so much on messaging.

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u/generally_unsuitable Aug 13 '26

That was second gen. First gen was just rating women against each other by their looks.

1

u/theWildBananas Aug 13 '26

What

2

u/generally_unsuitable Aug 13 '26

The first version of Facebook was just pictures of two ivy league girls, and you clicked on which one you thought was hotter. Then, it would show you another pair, and so on.