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"No formal definition" includes where we are today, not the original, outdated idea. By the original (not useful) definition, an "available" distributed system
by stevebmark 2y ago
"No formal definition" includes where we are today, not the original, outdated idea. By the original (not useful) definition, an "available" distributed system can return a response 10 years later, which is not helpful nor relevant when thinking about distributed systems.
- jeremyjh 2y agoWhat has changed that makes the idea out-dated? You can argue that it was always unhelpful but I can't see how it could be out-dated. You're correct that the theorem doesn't address latency requirements. There are all kinds of things it doesn't address. The point of it is simply as you say - you must give up consistency to have availability in the face of a partition, or vice-versa. Some vendors of distributed systems would have us believe otherwise. This theorem gives us a framework to understand at a very basic level the trade-offs that must be made in distributed system implementations. That isn't really very much for as much airtime as it got, which I suspect is what your contention is with.