I could imagine a list 10X that size that still does not need even 400K lines of Python code, much less 4M.
I agree that people generally underestimate the lines of code needed to operate systems at scale, but having used dropbox, I'd still say that's excessive. Note, this is just the Python code, not the UI stuff or the golang or Rust. I've been in multiple 1M-10M line codebases at scale and I just cannot fathom with how with their product simplicity (not engineering simplicity) they could be at that size with a language as expressive as Python.
My guess is this is generously counting a lot of forked libraries. Ungenerously, it makes me think there's a lot of NIH syndrome.
I agree that people generally underestimate the lines of code needed to operate systems at scale, but having used dropbox, I'd still say that's excessive. Note, this is just the Python code, not the UI stuff or the golang or Rust. I've been in multiple 1M-10M line codebases at scale and I just cannot fathom with how with their product simplicity (not engineering simplicity) they could be at that size with a language as expressive as Python.
My guess is this is generously counting a lot of forked libraries. Ungenerously, it makes me think there's a lot of NIH syndrome.