I’m co-organising a summer school on distributed systems for master’s and PhD students, along with @xmal, @anne_biene, Carla Ferreira, and @elisagboix. It will be in Brussels in September. Great opportunity to work with some leading researchers! vub.be/dare-2023

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

22h

This clever crow figured out how to pull up the bin bag and hold it with its claws so that it can reach the food inside. Seen today in Munich

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

May 2

New paper! 📄✨ It turns out that all text collaboration algorithms have an interleaving problem, and we fixed it for the first time. Very proud of this work with

@MatthewWeidner3

and

@josephgentle

arxiv.org

The Art of the Fugue: Minimizing Interleaving in Collaborative Text Editing

Existing algorithms for replicated lists, which are widely used in collaborative text editors, suffer from a problem: when two users concurrently insert text at the same position in the document,...

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

May 1

Program of the PaPoC workshop looks great this year. Sad that I can't be there this time

papoc-workshop.github.io

Program

The 10th Workshop on Principles and Practice of Consistency for Distributed Data

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Apr 29

@Eurostar

, is it ok to bring this type of pram (with bassinet) onto your trains? The frame is foldable but the bassinet is not. Not sure whether the bassinet will fit in the overhead compartment, and the website help.eurostar.com/faq/be-en/ques is not clear on what counts as “folding”

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Bassinet lifted from frame and frame folded

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Apr 21

Of course you might say that distributed systems really are witchcraft and you wouldn't be wrong…

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Apr 21

Hilarious that someone who ordered a copy of my book could get a misprint in which the contents have been replaced with an encyclopedia of witchcraft. But also irritating that Amazon allows poorly printed counterfeit copies to be sold!

Screenshot of an Amazon review complaining that the buyer was sent a book with the front and back cover of Designing Data-Intensive Applications, but with the ccontents replaced by a book on witchcraft

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Jul 24, 2022

For my book there are also lots of counterfeit print copies on Amazon. They show up as bad reviews complaining about poor print quality, missing pages, etc. O’Reilly have tried to get Amazon to fix this, but Amazon has done nothing. twitter.com/fchollet/statu…

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

Jim Nielsen

@jimniels

Apr 18

📝 Really enjoyed the 'local-first' talk from

@pvh

and the perspective shift from the binary offline/online to a spectrum of latency: offline is just online but with extreme latency.

blog.jim-nielsen.com

Offline Is Just Online With Extreme Latency

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

DARE

@DARE_2023

Mar 24

Pleased to announce that the application for the first Summer School on Distributed and Replicated Environments (DARE 2023) to be held at VUB on 11 - 15 September is open until 15 May 2023. See all details at

vub.be

First Summer School on DARE

DARE 2023 is an Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme funded by the European Union(*). It brings together active researchers in the field of distributed systems

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Apr 12

I’m co-organising a summer school on distributed systems for master’s and PhD students, along with

@xmal

@anne_biene

, Carla Ferreira, and

@elisagboix

. It will be in Brussels in September. Great opportunity to work with some leading researchers!

vub.be

First Summer School on DARE

DARE 2023 is an Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme funded by the European Union(*). It brings together active researchers in the field of distributed systems

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Apr 11

There are now over 150 published papers about CRDTs (let me know if any are missing). Feels like it’s becoming a real field of research!

crdt.tech

CRDT Papers • Conflict-free Replicated Data Types

Resources and community around CRDT technology — papers, blog posts, code and more.

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Matt (mlaw)

@tantaman

Apr 5

One of the things I'm most excited for is partnering with the LibSQL folks to create a custom syntax for defining tables which are backed by CRDTs! LibSQL is truly getting SQLite ready for the coming decades -- github.com/libsql/libsql vlcn.io/cr-sqlite/cust

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Apr 5

It’s been a while since I’ve posted some music-making. Here’s Debussy’s “Rêverie”, played poorly 😝

youtube.com

Rêverie by Claude Debussy

Plenty of wrong notes, which just make it all the more authentic!

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Apr 4

Not doing many conferences these days, but I will be speaking about our research at GOTO Amsterdam in June (10% discount with code “martin10”) #GOTOams

gotoams.nl

Creating Local-First Collaboration Software with Automerge

Conference talk with Martin Kleppmann at GOTO Amsterdam 2023

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

bluesky

@bluesky

Mar 31

Your attention is an invaluable resource. We’ve been working on creating a composable, customizable marketplace of algorithms that lets you take control of how you spend your attention.

blueskyweb.xyz

Algorithmic choice

Your attention is an invaluable resource. We want a future where you control what you see on social media.

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Mar 30

The MLS protocol for secure group messaging has just been approved as an IETF standard

ietf.org

Messaging Layer Security: Secure and Usable End-to-End Encryption

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

Richard Bishop

@bitsandhops

Mar 16

Locking is often used in places it isn't required. Fly knows this and is moving away from it. "How to do distributed locking" by

@martinkl

is the best writing on the subject that I know about. martin.kleppmann.com/2016/02/08/how

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Mar 9

Supporting explicit branching/merging requires new APIs and new algorithms in the CRDT libraries (for example, to highlight the edits made since some earlier point in history). But CRDTs are an excellent foundation for these features because they track edit history anyway!

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Mar 9

On a technical level this project takes CRDTs in an exciting new direction. Most CRDT research assumes concurrency happens just because of network delay. In Upwelling, concurrency also happens because users decided to work on independent branches for a while, and merge them later

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Mar 9

Upwelling is a first step towards figuring out how we could build version control concepts into non-plain-text apps (in this case, a rich text editor) in a way that is usable but still powerful.

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Mar 9

Version control is essential for software developers, but Git is only really suitable for plain text files. Users of WYSIWYG text editors, graphics software, spreadsheets, etc. don’t get the benefits of version control (diffing, branching, merging, viewing history, etc).

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Mar 9

The latest

@inkandswitch

project I’ve been involved with is Upwelling: an exploration of what a text editor might look like if it had both Google-Docs-style real-time collaboration and something like Git-style pull requests.

inkandswitch.com

Upwelling: Combining real-time collaboration with version control for writers.

Collaborative writing tools don’t work well for writers or editors. With Upwelling, we demonstrate a design that gives writers privacy while still offering editors transparency into how a document is...

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

This interview with

was like mainlining the optimism of the 1990s. This is a perspective our nation needs to recover.

noahpinion.blog

Interview: Kevin Kelly, editor, author, and futurist

A prophet of the tech world shares his thoughts on where it's all headed.

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

Emery Berger @emeryberger@discuss.systems Mastodon

@emeryberger

Mar 6

Want to check out CS conference publication rates (accepted / submitted) over time? Check out github.com/emeryberger/cs. All data is in a convenient `.csv` file. PRs welcome.

List of Computer Science Conference Publication Stats

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Julia Evans

@b0rk

Mar 7

some possible reasons for 8-bit bytes jvns.ca/blog/2023/03/0

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Replying to

Good point about documentation being sparse on failure handling. The framework right now just surfaces the errors to the application code. We'll also clarify that cross-component calls should assumed to be cross-network, unless the developer explicitly co-locates the components.

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

Gwen (Chen) Shapira

@gwenshap

Mar 7

New blog post: Things DBs don't do - But should! thenile.dev/blog/things-db It is based on my keynote at #ddtx23 - lots of people asked about it and there were no recordings. So I put my thoughts on writing.

thenile.dev

Things DBs Don't Do - But Should | Nile - The database for modern SaaS

This blog is based on the speaker notes for my talk at Data Day Texas 2023, and improved with feedback and ideas from my colleagues Ram Subramanian and Ewen Cheslack-Postava. If any of these missing...

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Mar 3

For discussion I refer you to Waldo et al.’s classic “A Note on Distributed Computing”, which is still as true today as it was 30 years ago scholar.harvard.edu/files/waldo/fi

Screenshot of two paragraphs from Section 3 of the paper

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Mar 3

Google's Service Weaver claims that it can hide the difference between RPC and local method calls. Just like CORBA claimed in 1991. Is it different this time? The docs say barely a word about handing failures, such as RPCs timing out serviceweaver.dev

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Mar 3

Update on the

@bluesky

decentralised social media project, by

@arcalinea

. I’ve been enjoying the private beta

blueskyweb.xyz

Bluesky Private Beta Update

We’ve started inviting people from our waitlist to test out a beta app. This app will be a reference client for the AT Protocol, and a landing place for users to enter the ecosystem.

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

Daring Fireball

@daringfireball

Mar 1

★ Tweetbot and Twitterrific Face the Cliff

daringfireball.net

Tweetbot and Twitterrific Face the Cliff

There is something noble about two longtime rivals — competitors, yes, but with nothing but deep respect and camaraderie for each other — facing this terrible cliff together, with dignity and grace,...

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

Funky icicles

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Feb 26

Temperature fluctuating between 0°C and –0°C? Hmm, the sweet smell of IEEE754 floating point

Screenshot of a weather forecast web page. The temperature at 13:00 is –0°C, at 14:00 it is 0°C, and at 15:00 it is –0°C again

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Feb 25

This looks like a great resource – a series of distributed systems programming challenges designed by Kyle Kingsbury aka aphyr

fly.io

Fly.io Distributed Systems Challenge

Documentation and guides from the team at Fly.io.

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Feb 23

The city of Munich sends all resident first-time parents periodic letters with parenting advice (and a ring binder to keep them in). All in all, 43 letters over the course of the first 14 years of the child’s life. So far I quite like them – they are encouraging and pragmatic.

Cover of a ring binder with a cartoon smiling baby face on it, and the title “Elternbriefe” (letters to parents)

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Two pages from the table of contents and index, listing a wide range of parenting topics

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Feb 14

newyorker.com

ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web

OpenAI’s chatbot offers paraphrases, whereas Google offers quotes. Which do we prefer?

Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

James Pearce

@jamespearce

Feb 9

I started a thing! 🎉 localfirstweb.dev It's definitely not complete, so please suggest additions and improvements as PRs 🙏 Hoping it becomes a useful starting point for local-first web developers.

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer

@martinkl

Feb 9

I wonder if Mastodon is becoming something like Linux on the Desktop: popular among a certain niche of tech enthusiasts, but unlikely to ever reach mainstream adoption because its design is optimised for the preferences of those niche users, not the mainstream

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Martin Kleppmann @martin@nondeterministic.computer Retweeted

Peter van Hardenberg

@pvh

Jan 30

Automerge 2.0 is here! Orders of magnitude faster, vastly better memory use, a compact binary format, a built-in synchronization engine, and available in both Rust and JavaScript. Best of all? Thanks to sponsors,

@alex_jg

works full-time on improving it.

automerge.org

Automerge 2.0 | Automerge CRDT

Automerge 2.0 is here and ready for production. It’s our first supported release resulting from a ground-up rewrite. The result is a production-ready CRDT with huge improvements in performance and...

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