Introduction
Rewriting a massive codebase is no small feat. At Lovable, we recently took on the challenge of converting 42,000 lines of Python code into Go. Our goal? To handle high-concurrency workloads more efficiently, ship features faster, and maintain a clean, sustainable codebase.
TL;DR
- Concurrency First: Go’s built-in concurrency model suits our parallel workloads better.
- Performance Gains: We’ve drastically reduced our server instance count and improved request times.
- Smarter Architecture: Our custom dependency injection framework optimizes how our nodes execute.
- Better for You: Expect faster feature releases, improved stability, and a more responsive platform.
From Python to Go
1. Why We Shifted to Go
When dealing with concurrent, parallel workloads (like handling more than 50 HTTP requests in a single chat request), Python can become tricky to manage.
- Concurrency Challenges: Python’s concurrency model, while functional, gets complicated with heavy workloads.
- Go’s Design: Go was built from the ground up to handle concurrency and parallelism more gracefully using goroutines and channels.
Key Quote from the Team
“Python is great, but not for what we do. Our loads are highly concurrent and parallel.” – Viktor Eriksson, Lovable Engineer
2. Building Our Own Dependency Injection Framework
As part of the migration, we developed a declarative dependency injection (DI) framework.
- How It Works: The framework dynamically creates a graph of nodes, executing them as soon as their dependencies are ready.
- Benefits: This approach keeps our code structured, reduces complexity, and speeds up both development and debugging.
3. Impact on the Lovable User Experience
Switching to Go means significant improvements for our user community.
- Faster Deploys: Deployment times dropped from 15 minutes to just 3.
- Improved Speed: Average request times are 12% faster, a direct benefit for end users.
- Resource Efficiency: We reduced server instances from 200 to just 10, lowering operational overhead and allowing us to reinvest in product features.
Practical Wins
- Fewer Servers, Lower Costs: We run fewer instances, which cuts down on complexity and cost.
- More Time for Features: Engineers spend less time on performance bottlenecks and more on building new tools and capabilities for Lovable.
4. What’s Next for Lovable
With Go in place, we’re accelerating our development lifecycle. We plan to:
- Roll Out Features Faster: Our dev team can focus on innovation rather than firefighting concurrency issues.
- Refine Our Core Product: Emphasis on improving the user experience and introducing new ways to leverage AI in your workflows.
Conclusion
Migrating 42,000 lines of code from Python to Go was a significant engineering challenge, but it positions Lovable to move faster and build better. The switch unlocks a more robust concurrency model, improves performance, and frees our team to innovate. We’re excited to see how these changes will enhance the way you use Lovable.
Sign up for Lovable and explore how our new Go-based infrastructure can help you build and ship projects faster. We’d love your feedback as we continue evolving.
