[HN Gopher] Martin Kleppmann talk on local-first (LoFi)
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Martin Kleppmann talk on local-first (LoFi)
Author : yonz
Score : 97 points
Date : 2024-02-20 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bsky.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (bsky.app)
| samwillis wrote:
| I'm really looking forward to this month Local First Web Meetup,
| Yonz has done a tremendous job organising them. It feels like
| being part of something new and growing, and to be honest I
| believe it is.
|
| This is the 1 year anniversary addition, and what a year of talk
| it's been. Lots of exciting stuff is happing in the world of
| local-first software this year, and this talk from Martin is the
| perfect way to kick it off!
|
| If your new to all this, the term "Local-first software"
| originated from this Ink and Switch paper by Martin Kleppmann
| https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/
| baxtr wrote:
| For those wondering what this is about (like I was). This is from
| their website [1]:
|
| _So, you want to build an app that has its data co-located with
| its UI? That works offline? That synchronizes between clients?
| And that lets its users own their data?
|
| Welcome to the world of local-first web development._
|
| [1] https://localfirstweb.dev/
| ehutch79 wrote:
| LoFi is a thing already. It's an abbreviation of Low Fidelity.
| yonz wrote:
| Yes, it felt like the right vibe. We usually kick things off
| with a LoFi playlist.
| nescioquid wrote:
| I saw a rant from someone in the FSF about project names that
| give you no idea what the software is for or does. This adds
| another layer to the complaint.
|
| There's probably a social aspect in which the name itself
| functions as a sort of shibboleth.
| thruflo wrote:
| This event is the 1 year anniversary of the https://lofi.software
| meet-ups. It's great Discord community to join if you're
| interested in local-first software development.
| Arathorn wrote:
| I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't query the wisdom of
| using Discord to celebrate local-first software dev ;)
| yonz wrote:
| I know, this has come up a few times. We will have a matrix
| bridge soon. Do you have any leads for a peer first community
| software with good adoption?
|
| I have a short list that I'm testing but none of them have
| the features we need: 1) Live video 2) # channels and 3)
| adoption
|
| Even moving off Twitter has been a challenge but I am
| optimistic about bsky
| Arathorn wrote:
| P2P Matrix (https://arewep2pyet.com) is our answer to peer-
| first community software, but it's currently on hiatus
| thanks to funding issues. The best I can propose is normal
| Matrix - and then when P2P comes along, it'll replicate
| onto clients as easily as it replicates onto servers today.
|
| Meanwhile, bsky is perfect for twitter replacement, imo,
| yonz wrote:
| Will keep an eye out
| yonz wrote:
| ElectricSQL folks are crushing it, by far the most impressive
| solution for 'collapsing the stack'. Checkout https://electric-
| sql.com/blog/2024/02/05/local-first-ai-with... for a sneak
| preview of the in-device ai talk
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Kleppmann is one of very few people who not only understands
| technical topics deeply, but is a great speaker & a writer. Very
| much looking forward to it.
|
| As for local first, I see it as a combination of a few things
|
| - moving databases as close to users as possible [0]
|
| - writing data without coordination with other nodes
|
| - background sync
|
| What this buys you is extremely high availability (as you can
| write without having to coordinate over a network), lower latency
| in general, because the database is right there (ideally within
| visual range), and more reliability, because network outages only
| effect background sync.
|
| I'll also add that while local first is often seen in the context
| of b2c users, i.e someone using their smart phone while
| travelling on an urban train system that has network dead spots -
| I think the real use-case is industrial. A lot of facilities
| completely grind to a halt when there's a network outage, which
| is not that infrequent. To say nothing of in field and IoT
| applications in industries like agriculture and mining.
|
| [0] the logical conclusion of "edge computing"
| martinkl wrote:
| Thank you! To your point about industrial use, yes - this is
| interesting. For example, Actyx makes a software system for
| coordination within a factory floor, and Ditto performs sync
| between devices of cabin crew on an aircraft. These are nice
| examples of industrial local-first systems.
| idiliv wrote:
| Hi Martin! It's Robert from Cambridge (you were my DOS :)).
| Glad to see your name pop up on HN!
| martinkl wrote:
| Hi there, good to hear from you! :)
| yonz wrote:
| Well said. After linear.app showed the jump in UX for local
| data ('moving databases as close to users as possible') it
| became really easy to answer the questions below by saying
| checkout linear.app
|
| * Why do we need local-first? * We don't need offline support *
| Google already has all my data, don't care about data ownership
| (a little orthogonal)
| mrusme wrote:
| " _Local-First_ Web Development "
|
| "Join our _Discord_ community and attend the next meetup "
|
| Hmm. :-)
| ajkjk wrote:
| TBH Discord as the de facto place for communities to organize
| online is getting kinda annoying. The Discord apps really don't
| handle being in lots of such organizations at once, or really
| make them easy to deal with at all. I wish there was something
| halfway between Discord and Reddit for things like this.
| yonz wrote:
| See below > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39445887
|
| We are actively looking for a solution, drop a line in the
| thread
| nostromo wrote:
| Why is this so highly ranked? It's just an ad for a conference.
| lbotos wrote:
| I mean, I was pretty excited to see it -- Auth for local first
| is something that I'm interested in so I appreciate that this
| hit the front page?
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Local-first has a lot of passionate folks around it! It doesn't
| feel super popular in orgs, but it feels like the right thing
| to do, like it's better for users.
|
| It also implies tackling some very complex & difficult data
| syncing challenges. Which can be appealing! So many systems out
| there end up querying the same data again and again, end up
| sending large entity trees out. There's so many interesting
| promising improvements/rearchitectings we could be making that
| would improve client-server systems broadly, and local-first
| brings into focus many of these un-optimal data-architecture
| concerns while also layering in delay-tolerant challenges.
|
| That's really it: local first is (can be, there are some good
| tools at hand too) a hard-mode, and getting good at it will
| improve computing architectures greatly from the client side
| out. If you want the best client side tech, if client side
| optimizations matter to you, local-first is a good place to be.
|
| Also, Martin Kleppmann is speaking & is a revered elder guru of
| data systems (his book _Designing Data Intensive Systems_ is
| _the_ modern text on data systems, among many other notables).
| _Where local first came from & where it's going_ sounds like a
| wonderful place to prognosticate from, and I'm so excited for a
| little shared view into Martin's crystal ball.
| runningamok wrote:
| To what extent is data ownership/user control still a goal of
| local-first? It feels like that part of the rationale has tapered
| off.
| drusepth wrote:
| I briefly worked with Martin at my first internship (Rapportive)
| and he immediately stuck out as someone who goes way above and
| beyond the typical when thinking through hard technical problems.
| Haven't heard his name in a while, but I'll definitely check out
| this talk.
| martinkl wrote:
| Oh hi Andrew! It's been ages, hope you're well!
| yonz wrote:
| I'll add to this gratitude thread.
|
| Martin has had a material impact on my career. I don't think I
| would have gotten my job at LinkedIn if it wasn't for his book,
| Designing Data-Intensive book:
| https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/designing-data-intensiv...
|
| I learned how to build a web application with FE, BE, DB, and
| distributed workers for my first job. But it wasn't until I
| read his book that I understood the enormous gap between
| building web apps and planet-scale web applications. The book
| saved me from bombing my interviews.
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