The Progress of Software Engineering, 1989-2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Distributed_Objects
<< Portable Distributed Objects (PDO) is an application programming interface (API) for creating object-oriented code that can be executed remotely on a network of computers.. created by NeXT Computer, Inc. using their OpenStep system >>
<< The ability to instantiate any object known to the local process from any other process is a known security vulnerability, and Apple strongly discourages use of PDO for that reason. >>
The ability to instantiate any Concept known to a human mind inside any other human mind by means of Speech is a known security vulnerability, and the United Network Command Office for Operational Logistics strongly discourages use of Speech for that reason.
The thing that annoys me about the failure of distributed objects as a programming paradigm is that,
in the 1990s, you could not go anywhere in computing without being utterly hammered by the message that Objects and especially Distributed Objects were The Future Here Now, this was it, Programming was Solved Forever, if you didn't Get It you were just Wrong
and we just sorta slid from there into "actually distributed objects are terrible never use them"
but never acknowledging that change.
It's not just the 1990s Distributed Objects people being so loud and aggressive and moneyed-up and preachy
It's not just that their tech was terrible and dangerous and caused billions in security damage
It's not just that the industry changed its mind about something it was so passionately furious scorched-earth in favour of
*It's the never admitting any fault* that gets me.
The computing industry often acts like an abusive gaslighting bully, and that behaviour is still going on today.
@natecull that’s the IT industry in general. Every couple of years the latest trend gets hyped beyond recognition then a year or two later its the worst thing imaginable. In truth most technology has pros and cons, suitable use cases and anti patterns. Its just that we’re really bad at getting sucked in by new shiny tech. Today’s snake oil is arguably micro services, distributed databases and blockchain. They all have uses, but less so than you’d think given their popularity.
Like (b) is a very narrow case indeed:
* you want a single, append-only log, processing one transaction batch at a time in strict linear order
* you actively want the system to be very slow
* you don't trust anyone running the servers
* but you don't mind if all the servers end up run by a few actors who spend the most
* you don't mind all the data being extremely public and stored forever
* you don't care about any externalities, like energy use or crime
@dean @barclakj
I feel like
a) hashing, public key signing and immutable distributed datastructures have a huge amount of potential for privacy and security
b) public proof-of-waste blockchains designed to create "artificial scarcity" are a radically unscalable solution to a very narrow problem mostly of interest to some very nasty people ("how to smuggle untraceable money to fund crimes") and they don't even do that very well
We should do a lot more of (a) and find better answers to (b).