Why your social.org files can have millions of lines without performance issues

Summary

As Org Social grows, users follow more feeds, and individual social.org files accumulate hundreds of posts over time. Traditional approaches that download entire feeds sequentially create two major bottlenecks: Bandwidth waste: Downloading complete files when users only need recent posts Time inefficiency: Sequential downloads that block the user interface This article explores how Org Social 2.3+ solves both problems with a sophisticated combination of concurrent queue processing and HTTP Range-based partial fetching while maintaining complete compatibility with all servers. The Challenge flowchart TB A[User Opens Timeline] --> B[20 Feeds to Download] B --> C[Traditional Approach: Sequential Downloads] C --> D[Feed 1: 27KB 150 posts] D --> E[Feed 2: 15KB 80 posts] E --> F[Feed 3: 12KB 60 posts] F --> G[... 17 more feeds] G --> H[Total: ~300KB and ~1500 posts] H --> I[Filter to last 14 days] I --> J[Actually needed: ~10 posts=first page] style C fill:#ffcccc,color:black style H fill:#ffcccc,color:black style J fill:#ccffcc,color:black Downloading 300KB and processing 1500 posts to get 10 posts... It is not good! Optimization Org-social.el implements a sophisticated three-layer approach: Layer 1: Concurrent Queue Processing A process queue is a data structure that manages tasks to be executed. In Org Social, each feed to download is added to the queue as a pending task. The system then processes these tasks concurrently (multiple at the same time) using a worker pool—a limited number of threads that execute downloads in parallel. This smart queue system manages parallel downloads without overwhelming system resources. flowchart LR A[Feed Queue] --> B[Worker Pool Max 20 concurrent] B --> C[Worker 1 Feed A] B --> D[Worker 2 Feed B] B --> E[Worker 3 Feed C] B --> F[...] B --> G[Worker 20 Feed T] C --> H{Done?} D --> H E --> H G --> H H -->|Yes| I[Process Next Pending Feed] H -->|Error| J[Mark Failed, Continue] I --> B J --> I style B fill:#e1f5ff,color:black style H fil...