ohhhh. i think this is a misunderstanding. it seems we’re using some terms
very differently.
when i say “how the data will flow thru the system”, i mean “datum X needs to
go to entity E via intermediate point Z”.
Z might be a queue and i don’t care about any subdetails (at this level) such
as TCP/IP details or somesuch.
Z might be a router (or a malamute) and i don’t care (at this level) about any
subdetails of Z.
so that is your “what data should be where”.
because i am talking about a communication web, i think that specifying what
the endpoint does with
the data is out of scope. but in your context, it is plausible to say what
responses (if any) there might be,
and how they are handled.
to my mind, it is a stretch to call that a protocol, but it is not wrong.
your analysis of teh highway system fits with the above; my claim that you need
to know your destination
is clearly true. i never cared about “all possible configurations” (i never
said it, but i see that you took
“flow” that way).
alex, thanks for the long reply; it helped me figure how i misspoke.
(assuming my analysis is correct!)
andrew
> On Aug 26, 2016, at 12:08 AM, alex. <thissid...@riseup.net> wrote:
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> I have to agree with Pieter here. What you want to be thinking about is: What
> data should be where? And what shall happen with it when it is there?
>
> I feel this is what you also want to do, but I think Pieter is right in
> pointing out that thinking about all possible data flow is a mistake, and
> protocols are a better vantage point. The problem, imho, is briefly: "data
> flow" encompasses all possible events in your system, protocols define only
> what events are legal in your system.
>
> To use your analogy: The national highway system in Germany isn't greatly
> defined (with it's countless driveways, reststops, roadworks, etc.), and I
> don't suppose any one person in Germany knows *all* about it, let alone know
> how all vehicles behave at any one point in time on the highway system.
> However, the law on traffic in Germany (STVO) is still just 53 paragraphs
> long and only one of them (§18) is concerned specifically about highways.
> Still, our highway system works, everday, with all the countless vehicles
> driving there every day. I'd say the STVO scaled extremely well!
>
> And here is the interesting part: In almost all cases accidents aren't faults
> of the driving rules, but of the drivers not upholding the rules. As a
> computer scientist, you could say that bad drivers are the bugs of the road
> system. And for the few cases where your protocol was faulty, you only have
> to change one or two sentences in your law/protocol (not all the drivers).
>
> So I would also recommend to you to not think about all the moving parts in
> all their possible configurations (i.e. all the cars on the road), but to
> really boil it down to: What data should be where? And how should receivers
> of that data respond to it? That is, write a protocol.
>
> Best,
> alex.
>
> P.S. This is also why I came to love finite state machines: as they translate
> your protocol-law perfectly into code.
>
> Am 25.08.2016 um 21:36 schrieb Andrew Hume:
>> pieter,
>>
>> i can’t figure out what you’re saying here. based on my several years
>> experience
>> with you, i have to conclude that i have somehow misspoken.
>>
>> i have a distributed application. that is, there are a number of
>> discrete components
>> that (for this discussion) are distinct processes running on some number of
>> servers.
>> some are accessed thru RPC calls, others generate work that then processed by
>> some number of worker components.
>>
>> in order for this to work, i clearly need to figure out how data will
>> flow
>> through this system. as i have understood the design methodology around
>> zeromq,
>> this means figuring out the fixed points in the data flow and organising the
>> components around those fixed points. some of these allow for “scaling”
>> (as in increasing the size of a worker pool).
>>
>> so i don’t understand
>> 1) how can this sort of design be a “mistake”? how can you do anything
>> without
>> (trying to) understand where the data needs to go?
>>
>> 2) many protocols (which i guess you mean things defined by RFCs) don’t
>> scale;
>> they simply detail teh bi-lateral contract between (roughly) user and
>> supplier of a service
>> (like NTP). i know some address this directly (like the Gossip protocol),
>> but surely you don’t mean just those?
>>
>> andrew
>>
>>
>>> On Aug 24, 2016, at 11:06 AM, Pieter Hintjens <p...@imatix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> FWIW I have come to believe that trying to design or even understand
>>> the overall flows of data is a mistake, at least when you want to
>>> scale.
>>>
>>> What does scale is to speak of protocols and implementations. I know
>>> this isn't a happy answer yet it's a proven one (RFCs, Internet).
>>>
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>>
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