Re: [Social-discuss] PHP-Based GNU Social structure

[Melvin Carvalho]

2010/3/29 Melvin Carvalho <address@hidden>

2010/3/29 Blaine Cook <address@hidden>

On 29 March 2010 04:28, Carlo von Loesch <address@hidden> wrote:
> Of course Twitter is not the model - it is completely centralized.
> The decentralized answer to this is pushing events to the intended
> recipients as they happen. You can use HTTP POST madness for this,
> as Blaine Cook considers feasible, or use or design a protocol
> actually optimized to do this job. There is a reason why chatrooms
> are usually not implemented by HTTP POST orgies.

Actually, increasingly they are.

Was actually discussing this topic with Henry Story this morning.

I just want to say that I also think chat over HTTP is not optimal, but that it *can* be done. 

Take a look at the ape-project chat:

http://www.ape-project.org/demos/1/ape-real-time-chat.html

Hmm looks like it's down, right now ... was working this morning ... apologies for that, I'll check the link before posting, next time.
 

This is backed by persisent AJAX calls (think of that as what websocket will look like) and a comet server, over HTTP.

Just to reiterate, I am not suggesting this as part of a design, I actually agree with Calro that we'll want a better realtime protocol for chat in the longer term, but it shows realtime can work over http, if you're prepared to be a little creative. 
 

I'm not the only one advocating this approach. I agree it's not
optimal, but as you speak of "wisdom" in another thread, I'll
reiterate that I built one of the largest implementations of a
"chatroom" ever built, and worried a lot about the inefficiencies
therein. As it turns out, Twitter is far bigger than when I was
worrying about these inefficiencies, and still runs on HTTP polling.
It's appalling, it's horrendous, but developers love the HTTP, and
most importantly, it's massively successful. So the wisdom I've gained
is that sometimes the "best" technology doesn't win; more often than
not, the most suitable technology wins.

And isn't that the most important thing here? Do we want a highly
tuned race-car of a P2P decentralized network that has no users, that
concedes to Twitter and Facebook the bulk of users and their freedom?
Or do we want a successful technology that empowers more people and
promotes and extends freedom to them?

You're welcome to create something entirely new, but I'd suggest you
start by mocking up some designs as to how your P2P network is meant
to work /for users/, and not just geeks. The same applies to the
usability of the underlying technology as far as your target
technological audience is concerned (in this case, your audience is
almost certainly web developers - c.f., GNU Social targeting PHP). The
technology is important, but the usability and desirability of the end
result is far more so. Ignore this at your peril.

b.