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I see this comment often when IPFS is discussed - but the devil is in the details when it comes to replacing the underlying tech of "the web" with something els

by dymk 8y ago

I see this comment often when IPFS is discussed - but the devil is in the details when it comes to replacing the underlying tech of "the web" with something else. How does an IPFS powered website do dynamic content? User sessions? Is all the client's session data encoded in the IPFS address itself? Even if there's no user sessions, but the page content updates, how do you continuously point clients to fetch the right updated page (e.g. how would you implement a Hacker News style aggregator that updates every minute)? IPFS does static content just fine - CAS-es are wonderful for that - but websites are much more than static content.

fiatjaf 8y ago
Dynamic content is not the problem. I don't want dynamic content. I think HTTP and servers are the way to go on dynamic content. I just tried, for years, to use IPFS as a way to distribute static content (you know, stuff that will never ever change, even if that stuff is referenced from a dynamic location), and the problems I encountered were so many I finally gave up. I would love to see all these problems solved and IPFS working very well in the next few years, but I'm afraid the IPFS people are very good in making press releases and presentations, but not in delivering really good software as they say they do. Anyway, they have no obligation to deliver anything to anyone -- except maybe the people who entered the Filecoin ICO.
- dymk 8y ago
  If you want IPFS to be a replacement technology for the web, you need dynamic content. Else, it's a useful static content distribution network, but it's not "the web", not even in the sense of what the web was in the 90s, or the "web" any more than Bittorrent is. Now, obviously, they're under no obligation to deliver anything. But I'm trying to understand what you mean when you say: The vision of a IPFS-powered web working is beautiful Only handling the static part of webhosting is something, but it's not everything.
  - resonious 8y ago
    I'm under the impression that the original comment was referring to an IPFS-powered web, rather than the web being powered by IPFS. Good ol' HTTP servers will continue to form the web as we know it, and IPFS can provide a new web of static content.
    - IgorPartola 8y ago
      So at best IPFS is a replacement for something like S3? If I want to create an application, I can have the static content portion of it hosted on IPFS, but the brunt still on my own servers? That’s a very niche use case, I would say. And while it allows me to host my copy of the anarchist’s cookbook, it’s not going to be good for much else.
  - nonsens3 8y ago
    I don't want to hijack the discussion from IPFS, but Swarm has good ideas with respect to dynamic content if you're interested how that might work in a decentralized setting, for example see Swarm Feeds presented here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92PtA5vRMl8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92PtA5vRMl8
  - fiatjaf 8y ago
    I didn't say it's everything. I don't think HTTP must die or will die. HTTP is great, it's awesome, wonderful. I would like IPFS to exist along with HTTP, that's what I said. Actually, I think the fact that IPFS developers are trying to replace HTTP one of the reasons they fail so awfully in producing a good IPFS for static content. They try to integrate much more stuff than actually needed in the protocol.
marknadal 8y ago
For dynamic data, you need to use a CRDT system like GUN ( https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun ). For instance, see P2P Reddit ( http://notabug.io http://notabug.io ) which: - Running in production with GUN. - Handling about 42,000 monthly visitors. ( https://www.similarweb.com/website/notabug.io https://www.similarweb.com/website/notabug.io ) - Has done ~1TB in 1 day of decentralized traffic. You can then configure GUN to save to IPFS as the blob/storage engine (or we have filesystem, localStorage, IndexedDB, S3, etc. as options). It is basically like having a P2P Firebase :) with IPFS plugin.
- fwip 8y ago
  It's a shame that so many P2P advocates - or at least the ones using the stuff built with P2P tech - are very loud alt-right types. I popped on notabug.io just now, and the chat is full of swastikas, racial slurs, and the most up-voted posts are primarily anti-gay misinformation. I see you wrote GUN, which I'm sure was no small feat, and it looks like an impressive piece of technology. How do you feel about your tech being primarily used in this way?
  - fiatjaf 8y ago
    I just clicked on notabug and didn't see any swastikas or racial slurs. Are you lying?
    - fwip 8y ago
      You think somebody would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies? Warning: image contains racial slurs and swastikas: https://i.imgur.com/0kdxzVR.png https://i.imgur.com/0kdxzVR.png A little later in the chat, the developer chimes in and talks about some stuff. Then some people angrily accost them for censoring things. If the Nazis and the racists aren't censored, I don't want to think about the odious content that is. Edit: Here's a thread from... yesterday, where a bunch of users are mad about the "censorship" of the developer hiding a swastika post from the front-page (not even deleting it or removing it from whatever their equivalent of a sub-reddit is): https://notabug.io/t/whatever/comments/509b9189ece85515671d3074e71a40da8955cd03/go1dfish-censors-posts-based-off-political-content https://notabug.io/t/whatever/comments/509b9189ece85515671d3...
mdaniel 8y ago
> how would you implement a Hacker News style aggregator that updates every minute AIUI, that's the problem that IPNS is designed to solve (https://github.com/ipfs/specs/blob/master/naming/README.md#ipns-record https://github.com/ipfs/specs/blob/master/naming/README.md#i...). HN controls its private key, enabling it to be the only one who can update the record at the signature of its public key, and those IPNS records have nanosecond precision expiry timestamps and TTLs, meaning they can update at the frequency of their choice I agree with the sibling comments that (at least as the IPFS is currently specified) having a user session would be problematic. It's theoretically possible that _your_ HN front page would have an IPNS record of IPFS://mdaniel.news.ycombinator.com and then we're back to the aforementioned expiry semantics. Upvotes would have to travel out of the IPFS network, but in some sense, I think that's expected since one wouldn't want an upvote to be archived, but rather the resulting content to be There are a ton of weird perspective changes when thinking about the content addressable web, but it might not be the 2050-esque far away that it seems

by dymk 8y ago

fiatjaf 8y ago

Dynamic content is not the problem. I don't want dynamic content. I think HTTP and servers are the way to go on dynamic content. I just tried, for years, to use IPFS as a way to distribute static content (you know, stuff that will never ever change, even if that stuff is referenced from a dynamic location), and the problems I encountered were so many I finally gave up. I would love to see all these problems solved and IPFS working very well in the next few years, but I'm afraid the IPFS people are very good in making press releases and presentations, but not in delivering really good software as they say they do. Anyway, they have no obligation to deliver anything to anyone -- except maybe the people who entered the Filecoin ICO.

dymk 8y ago
If you want IPFS to be a replacement technology for the web, you need dynamic content. Else, it's a useful static content distribution network, but it's not "the web", not even in the sense of what the web was in the 90s, or the "web" any more than Bittorrent is. Now, obviously, they're under no obligation to deliver anything. But I'm trying to understand what you mean when you say: The vision of a IPFS-powered web working is beautiful Only handling the static part of webhosting is something, but it's not everything.
- resonious 8y ago
  I'm under the impression that the original comment was referring to an IPFS-powered web, rather than the web being powered by IPFS. Good ol' HTTP servers will continue to form the web as we know it, and IPFS can provide a new web of static content.
  - IgorPartola 8y ago
    So at best IPFS is a replacement for something like S3? If I want to create an application, I can have the static content portion of it hosted on IPFS, but the brunt still on my own servers? That’s a very niche use case, I would say. And while it allows me to host my copy of the anarchist’s cookbook, it’s not going to be good for much else.
- nonsens3 8y ago
  I don't want to hijack the discussion from IPFS, but Swarm has good ideas with respect to dynamic content if you're interested how that might work in a decentralized setting, for example see Swarm Feeds presented here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92PtA5vRMl8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92PtA5vRMl8
- fiatjaf 8y ago
  I didn't say it's everything. I don't think HTTP must die or will die. HTTP is great, it's awesome, wonderful. I would like IPFS to exist along with HTTP, that's what I said. Actually, I think the fact that IPFS developers are trying to replace HTTP one of the reasons they fail so awfully in producing a good IPFS for static content. They try to integrate much more stuff than actually needed in the protocol.

marknadal 8y ago

For dynamic data, you need to use a CRDT system like GUN ( https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun ). For instance, see P2P Reddit ( http://notabug.io http://notabug.io ) which: - Running in production with GUN. - Handling about 42,000 monthly visitors. ( https://www.similarweb.com/website/notabug.io https://www.similarweb.com/website/notabug.io ) - Has done ~1TB in 1 day of decentralized traffic. You can then configure GUN to save to IPFS as the blob/storage engine (or we have filesystem, localStorage, IndexedDB, S3, etc. as options). It is basically like having a P2P Firebase :) with IPFS plugin.

fwip 8y ago
It's a shame that so many P2P advocates - or at least the ones using the stuff built with P2P tech - are very loud alt-right types. I popped on notabug.io just now, and the chat is full of swastikas, racial slurs, and the most up-voted posts are primarily anti-gay misinformation. I see you wrote GUN, which I'm sure was no small feat, and it looks like an impressive piece of technology. How do you feel about your tech being primarily used in this way?
- fiatjaf 8y ago
  I just clicked on notabug and didn't see any swastikas or racial slurs. Are you lying?
  - fwip 8y ago
    You think somebody would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies? Warning: image contains racial slurs and swastikas: https://i.imgur.com/0kdxzVR.png https://i.imgur.com/0kdxzVR.png A little later in the chat, the developer chimes in and talks about some stuff. Then some people angrily accost them for censoring things. If the Nazis and the racists aren't censored, I don't want to think about the odious content that is. Edit: Here's a thread from... yesterday, where a bunch of users are mad about the "censorship" of the developer hiding a swastika post from the front-page (not even deleting it or removing it from whatever their equivalent of a sub-reddit is): https://notabug.io/t/whatever/comments/509b9189ece85515671d3074e71a40da8955cd03/go1dfish-censors-posts-based-off-political-content https://notabug.io/t/whatever/comments/509b9189ece85515671d3...

mdaniel 8y ago

> how would you implement a Hacker News style aggregator that updates every minute AIUI, that's the problem that IPNS is designed to solve (https://github.com/ipfs/specs/blob/master/naming/README.md#ipns-record https://github.com/ipfs/specs/blob/master/naming/README.md#i...). HN controls its private key, enabling it to be the only one who can update the record at the signature of its public key, and those IPNS records have nanosecond precision expiry timestamps and TTLs, meaning they can update at the frequency of their choice I agree with the sibling comments that (at least as the IPFS is currently specified) having a user session would be problematic. It's theoretically possible that _your_ HN front page would have an IPNS record of IPFS://mdaniel.news.ycombinator.com and then we're back to the aforementioned expiry semantics. Upvotes would have to travel out of the IPFS network, but in some sense, I think that's expected since one wouldn't want an upvote to be archived, but rather the resulting content to be There are a ton of weird perspective changes when thinking about the content addressable web, but it might not be the 2050-esque far away that it seems