The example is synthetic, so don't worry too much about the implications.
It is useful to keep in mind that Facebook isn't just the front-end (and isn't just code, also images, configuration, and so forth).
Just talking about open source stuff, Facebook also generates code like Cassandra, Hive (data warehousing application), Phabricator (a code review and lifecycle tool), HipHop for PHP (the translator/compiler, the interpreter, and the virtual machine), FlashCache (a kernel driver), Thrift, Scribe, and so forth.
We also have had to build applications to support our operations, so think about what sort of effort goes into building scalable monitoring, configuration management, automatic remediation, logging infrastructure, and so forth.
I don't know the actual lines of code across it all, and wouldn't mention it if I did, but people often underestimate the scale here.
It doesn't live in a single repository. The commenter I was replying to mentioned "Facebook and all its peripheral development" and a number of lines of code. I wanted to give him a little insight into what sort of things all the peripheral development might include, since it isn't obvious.
It is useful to keep in mind that Facebook isn't just the front-end (and isn't just code, also images, configuration, and so forth).
Just talking about open source stuff, Facebook also generates code like Cassandra, Hive (data warehousing application), Phabricator (a code review and lifecycle tool), HipHop for PHP (the translator/compiler, the interpreter, and the virtual machine), FlashCache (a kernel driver), Thrift, Scribe, and so forth.
We also have had to build applications to support our operations, so think about what sort of effort goes into building scalable monitoring, configuration management, automatic remediation, logging infrastructure, and so forth.
I don't know the actual lines of code across it all, and wouldn't mention it if I did, but people often underestimate the scale here.