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backus's profile
John Backus
John Backus
John Backus
@backus

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John Backus

@backus

Seeking alternative compression. Hopefully wrong on average. Shameless. Started @getcognito and @bloom

San Francisco, CA
Joined August 2012

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    1. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 19

      p2p file sharing history is littered w/ predictions that a new **unstoppable and totally decentralized** protocol will takeover. It never happened. Users always flocked to the least decentralized system possible. Big lesson for today's blockchain and decentralization ecosystemspic.twitter.com/O2mE85BxF8

      31 replies 148 retweets 443 likes
      Show this thread
    2. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 19

      Decentralized systems are WAY harder to build and this seems to always affect UX. If easier to use centralized systems exist, users always prefer them. Decentralization is like regulatory compliance: it isn't a feature that attracts users, you just do it to stay alive.

      24 replies 45 retweets 188 likes
      Show this thread
    3. You and 52 others‏ @kragen Jul 20
      Replying to @backus

      This sounds like someone in 1961 saying "high-level languages are WAY harder to build and this seems to always affect responsiveness; if easier to use systems written in assembly language exist, users always prefer them"

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    4. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 20
      Replying to @kragen

      I don't know. Compare the effort that had to go into building a centralized BitTorrent tracker vs. building a resilient trackerless BitTorrent DHT. It isn't just about levels of abstraction, adversarial distributed systems are just harder than centralized systems

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    5. You and 52 others‏ @kragen Jul 20
      Replying to @backus

      Distributed systems where you don't trust a server are hard; centralized systems where you don't trust a server are impossible.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      John Backus‏ @backus Jul 20
      Replying to @kragen

      Yeah, I think I agree. All I'm saying in the orig tweets is that decentralizing things is hard by comparison (if for no other reason than we historically don't build software like that) and so try to figure out what parts truly need to be trustless / have decentralized properties

      12:31 PM - 20 Jul 2018
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. You and 52 others‏ @kragen Jul 20
          Replying to @backus

          I think we have 70 years of experience building centralized software and only about 15 years of experience building decentralized software. Centralized systems have a lot of problems with reliability and performance that we've spent decades learning to solve that are just absent.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        3. John Backus‏ @backus Jul 20
          Replying to @kragen

          Yup, I agree.

          1 reply 1 retweet 0 likes
        4. You and 52 others‏ @kragen Jul 20
          Replying to @backus

          Also I think you should add a middle initial to your Twitter name. (Or do you think he's the one who sucks, so you shouldn't have to change?)

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        5. End of conversation

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