Stuff that goes fast: August stories from Shopify Eng

Hello from Shopify Engineering!

Speed and performance were recurring themes this month, with some exciting new announcements from the React Native Skia team, a post on how we built FlashList (and what's in it for you), and a deep dive on how JIT can be faster than an ahead-of-time compiler. And if you enjoyed Josh Larson's post in June on how we built Hydrogen, check out our follow-up which tells the story behind Oxygen: the hand-picked collection of technologies we created to host Hydrogen storefronts.

We're gearing up for a good time at RubyKaigi 2022—hope to see some of you in our office hours session. Have other plans on September 9? No worries. We'll be at Euruko 2022 and React Advanced London  in October too.

- Ashley Sawatsky, Copy Editor, Shopify Engineering

Instant Performance Upgrade: From FlatList to FlashList

By Marek Fořt, Production Engineer

High frame rate, no more blank cells, and developer friendly:  FlashList is a fast and performant list component that can be swapped into your project with minimal effort. Marek unpacks how we approached the FlashList project and its benefits to you.

How We Built Oxygen: Hydrogen’s Counterpart for Hosting Custom Storefronts

By Sneha Shah, Development Manager

In June, we shared the details of how we built Hydrogen, our React-based framework for building custom storefronts. This time we tell the story of Oxygen, Hydrogen’s counterpart that makes hosting Hydrogen custom storefronts easy and seamless. 

When is JIT Faster Than A Compiler?

By Noah Gibbs, Senior Staff Software Developer

Noah answers this question in detail, including why Ruby doesn't play nice with ahead-of-time compilers and what you can do about it.

Six Tips for Staying Technical as a CTO

By Allan Leinwand, Shopify CTO

How can technical leaders gain credibility among their teams and stay up to date in their technical craft, while devoting so much of their day-to-day to the leadership tasks their role demands of them? Allan's tips are practical and applicable for leaders on or aspiring to the CTO track.

Shopify Data’s Guide To Opportunity Sizing

By Dr. Ella Hilal, VP of Data Science

Opportunity sizing is a method that data scientists use to quantify the potential impact of an initiative ahead of making the decision to invest in it. Dr. Hilal explains how we approach this at Shopify and why business leaders can benefit from the practice.

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