[HN Gopher] The AT protocol is the most obtuse crock of s*
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The AT protocol is the most obtuse crock of s*
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2023-05-09 22:28 UTC (31 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (urbanists.social)
 (TXT) w3m dump (urbanists.social)
        
       | barathr wrote:
       | I'm curious how this will play out for BlueSky with some
       | fundamental human readability vs. decentralization tradeoffs such
       | as the ICN naming tradeoff
       | (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/networking/ICSI_naminginco...)
       | and Zooko's triangle. Often folks point to biometric binding for
       | DID's to get around Zooko's triangle, which is problematic from a
       | privacy/trust standpoint.
       | 
       | Other systems such as Mastodon avoid running into these problems
       | because of direct and implicit use of DNS for the namespace. (And
       | use of DNS embedding in DIDs ends up undermining the value of
       | flat naming.)
        
       | rektide wrote:
       | > _It turns out using Git, which is almost always used with a
       | centralized 'remote', to do federation, which needs to be weakly
       | consistent, IS A BAD IDEA!!!!!_
       | 
       | Given that a user owns their feed, I'm not sure why this is a bad
       | idea?
       | 
       | I want to take this critiques here seriously but there's not a
       | ton to grasp onto. It definitely didn't feel great that AtProto
       | built from bare ground, reinvented json-schema & OpenAPI for no
       | reason. But ultimately this is one of a number of grievances that
       | feels like doesn't really matter. It's stupid & dumb but in the
       | end it doesn't matter. It's hard to tell which of these points
       | really have hard & real impact. And which are just bias.
       | 
       | The general feeling is an unencumbered letting out of biases,
       | which makes it harder to trust.
        
         | barathr wrote:
         | My limited understanding of the problem about git as the basis
         | for user data storage is that it then would expose the
         | complexity of git rebasing and the rest via federation. Git is
         | great with a centralized remote (like I believe the original
         | post is getting at) but less so in a federated setting.
        
       | jug wrote:
       | With all that screaming from a user on the primarily competing
       | network, I really need to hear a response from the Bluesky team
       | to form an opinion here. And understand better why this guy is
       | extremely upset about this destined-to-fail network.
        
       | SV_BubbleTime wrote:
       | Any other embedded programmers or older people that remember what
       | an AT protocol _really_ is confused every time they see a story
       | about Bluesky?
        
         | floxy wrote:
         | I was just about to post that this article isn't about the AT
         | modem commands.
         | 
         | https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programming/Modems_and_...
         | ?
        
       | capableweb wrote:
       | > I think the fundamental reason why we keep seeing more and more
       | bullshit protocols and projects pop up like this is one
       | fundamental mindset: a refusal to attribute the problems of the
       | modern internet solely to capitalism.
       | 
       | I mean, I'm sure they have some points in this ranty thread of
       | toots, but it's hard to take it serious when it ends up blaming
       | it all on capitalism (which, I hear you brother, I'm no fan
       | either) and it's FILLED WITH SHOUTING FOR NO GOOD REASON.
       | 
       | Sometimes, when you feel strongly about something, it's useful to
       | write a first draft, and come back to it after cooling down for a
       | day or two, and rewrite it to be more nuanced.
       | 
       | The AT Protocol has many flaws, like any protocol, that much is
       | evident. But I don't think this toot-thread gives a accurate view
       | of those flaws. It also doesn't seem to consider that all these
       | different protocols make different tradeoffs, and none of the
       | protocols try to be "one protocol to rule them all". They are
       | simply better at some things, and worse at others.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-05-09 23:00 UTC)