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It is neither dying nor fading into the background. Huge numbers of scientific endeavours (eg LIGO) depend on distributed computing. Much of the world of financ

It is neither dying nor fading into the background. Huge numbers of scientific endeavours (eg LIGO) depend on distributed computing. Much of the world of finance depends on massive risk models computed using distributed computing. The LLMs driving the AI hype cycle are for sure not trained and finetuned on single machines etc. A very specific old model of distributed computing isn't as popular as it once was because the world of technology has changed beyond all recognition since the likes of SETI@Home etc.

corethree 3y ago
I think the term "distributed computing" used in the article has a different meaning then "distributed systems" which you are referring too. Think of it as peer to peer compute. Like bit torrent but instead of data transfer, you compute things. Crypto is the latest iteration of this. Certainly isn't main stream
- seanhunter 3y ago
  I understand completely what the author wants distributed computing to mean. I'm also very familiar with the scene he's talking about. In my time I ran Seti@Home, Folding@Home<- (? I think that's what the thing was called), the great internet mersenne prime search etc. I've even done the crowd-sourced distributed computing thing in Eve Online. However this kind of crowd-sourced computing is a tiny subset of distributed computing. Unless you think (for example) that the author has got it right, and me and Leslie Lamport have got the definition wrong[1]. [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3335772.3335934 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3335772.3335934
  - SargeDebian 3y ago
    > Folding@Home<- (? I think that's what the thing was called) If only the article could help you out in finding its name.
    - seanhunter 3y ago
      Since it's got completely the wrong end of the stick about distributed computing I'm not sure it can be trusted on names of things in general. That being said, I know the article mentions Folding@Home and the It Project. I know I ran a distributed protein folding thing back in about 2002. I'm not sure it was "Folding@Home" though. That's not something the article can help me with.
  - corethree 3y ago
    We are in agreement. The current state of the art iteration of that "scene" is now in cryptocurrencies.

corethree 3y ago

I think the term "distributed computing" used in the article has a different meaning then "distributed systems" which you are referring too. Think of it as peer to peer compute. Like bit torrent but instead of data transfer, you compute things. Crypto is the latest iteration of this. Certainly isn't main stream

seanhunter 3y ago
I understand completely what the author wants distributed computing to mean. I'm also very familiar with the scene he's talking about. In my time I ran Seti@Home, Folding@Home<- (? I think that's what the thing was called), the great internet mersenne prime search etc. I've even done the crowd-sourced distributed computing thing in Eve Online. However this kind of crowd-sourced computing is a tiny subset of distributed computing. Unless you think (for example) that the author has got it right, and me and Leslie Lamport have got the definition wrong[1]. [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3335772.3335934 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3335772.3335934
- SargeDebian 3y ago
  > Folding@Home<- (? I think that's what the thing was called) If only the article could help you out in finding its name.
  - seanhunter 3y ago
    Since it's got completely the wrong end of the stick about distributed computing I'm not sure it can be trusted on names of things in general. That being said, I know the article mentions Folding@Home and the It Project. I know I ran a distributed protein folding thing back in about 2002. I'm not sure it was "Folding@Home" though. That's not something the article can help me with.
- corethree 3y ago
  We are in agreement. The current state of the art iteration of that "scene" is now in cryptocurrencies.