https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditEng/comments/qdiy5c/were_working_on_building_a_real_developer/
created by KeyserSosa on 22/10/2021 at 15:09 UTC
96 upvotes, 9 top-level comments (showing 9)
Reddit is a community-driven platform, and what has made Reddit most rich is the creativity and innovation of those communities. The model allowing *anyone* to create and run their own community (originally dubbed “subreddit”) dates back to 2008. In this post, I, speaking not just as Reddit’s CTO but as someone who got to who has been here writing code since the *very early days*, want to give some historical context of some of the tooling we’ve built to help communities grow and function over the years, but which have shown the need for a richer development platform on Reddit. To lead this initiative, we are looking to make a really big hire, our head of dev platform[1].
1: https://boards.greenhouse.io/reddit/jobs/3319091
Within a year of self-serve community creation, we added the ability of communities to self-style their brand new communities. At the time and for much of the first decade, this consisted of being able to write basically free-form CSS. Though a nightmare to maintain and version, and always with an eye to the security and integrity of the platform (*so many fun bug fixes on that feature…!*), community styling unleashed the full creativity of communities and provided the first version of many features we take for granted now such as user flair, post tagging, and even sidebar widgets. Though not a development platform per se, frankly it’s *amazing* what can be done with the right combination of “:before”, “:after” and other pseudo-selectors.
As communities grew and flourished, and the various models of how to moderate made it difficult to find a one-size-fits-all set of tooling to cover moderation needs,in 2015, we brought Automoderator into the fold as a first-class tool. In much the same way as CSS-based styling, Automoderator is not a scripting tool *per se* but it also provided pieces of a platform which allowed for development and creativity. Automod consists of a set of rules (written in YAML) which are tested against posts and comments as they are submitted. Though initially built with an eye to automating away common moderation tasks, it proved to be a mechanism for community improvements as well! The earliest forms of stickied posts and post scheduling came out of automoderator rules.
All the while over these years, our API, which was ultimately built to be *that thing that lets the website talk to the servers* (and vice versa) became increasingly codified and relied upon for a rich ecosystem of third party scripts. And, I do mean “website” here. The roots of the most recent Reddit API date back to a time before Apps! The open nature of our APIs have allowed a rich ecosystem of 3rd party reddit apps to grow and flourish long before we got to building our own. It also means that, hough Automod solves many problems, community-specific moderation bots based in toolkits like PRAW[2] could be build to solve many more problems. Even the usage of the word “bot” has different meanings on Reddit. Whereas on other platforms it is a shortcut to discussions of inauthenticity and manipulation, on Reddit it’s a descriptor of a large ecosystem of “good bots” built to provide such varied services as moderation support, summarization of text, and even metric to imperial unit conversions.
2: https://github.com/praw-dev/praw
All of the above has been done with community innovation, and very little support from the likes of us. We aim to change that in what I hope is the best way: by providing an even more flexible platform for development. Though the existing Reddit API isn’t going anywhere, we’re hoping to use all that we’ve learned from the delightful hackery outlined above to create entirely new toolkits for development and community innovation, in the form of a first-class path for support and improvement of a new developer platform. We aim for this to be more than just a new API, but rather an entirely new way to operate against Reddit and enhance the Reddit community experience.
Sounds interesting? Here’s what we’re looking to hire for our head of dev platform[3].
3: https://boards.greenhouse.io/reddit/jobs/3319091
Comment by Generic_Mod at 22/10/2021 at 17:55 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It also means that, hough Automod solves many problems, community-specific moderation bots based in toolkits like PRAW could be build to solve many more problems.
I shudder to think what it would be like without the home-grown mod bots for the subs I mod. PRAW is awesome :)
Comment by l337quaker at 03/11/2021 at 00:26 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Communities like.... secretsanta?
Comment by markregg at 22/10/2021 at 17:43 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Best I can do is part way through college, take it or leave it.
Comment by bleeding-paryl at 22/10/2021 at 15:26 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The roots of the most recent Reddit API date back to a time before Apps! The open nature of our APIs have allowed a rich ecosystem of 3rd party reddit apps to grow and flourish long before we got to building our own.
Ah yes, I too know Reddit being literally everywhere. Including in your terminal!
But seriously, it looks like you have a very specific set of things you're looking for, as the requirements are looking for people that have been in the industry for many years, as well as more of a management position with very solid programming practices. Is there any specific person or type of person you had in mind for this role when typing it out?
On the topic of the "new api" itself, what would you be looking for it to do that the current one doesn't do? How would you be improving things?
Comment by ShiningConcepts at 24/10/2021 at 02:31 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Very interesting. If I may ask, and this is the primary thing I am interested in on this topic: are there plans for the new API to not have the 1000 items limit (meaning, for instance, you could comb through *all* of your submissions and comments, and not just the latest 1000 like the current Reddit API)?
Comment by uzi at 26/10/2021 at 04:10 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I agree with the job posting ... "This role is a really big deal." I look forward to the fruits of this effort. Hope you find someone awesome.
Comment by iamthatis at 01/11/2021 at 14:24 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This sounds so exciting, not sure how I just found this but so awesome! I operate a decent sized third party app so feel free to email me or anything if I can be of any help.
Comment by joshb44231 at 09/12/2021 at 05:11 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So is this the reason you killed RedditGifts?
Comment by nerdshark at 25/12/2021 at 00:03 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Here's some things I'd like to see: