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> because if you knew what it was you wanted, then you would already have stored it. "Content-addressable" has a broader meaning than what you seem to be think
by akoboldfrying 2y ago
> because if you knew what it was you wanted, then you would already have stored it.
"Content-addressable" has a broader meaning than what you seem to be thinking of -- roughly speaking, it applies if any function of the data is used as the "address". E.g., git commits are content-addressable by their SHA1 hashes.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoBut when you do a "git pull" you're not pulling from someplace identified by a hash, but rather a hostname. The learning-about-new-hashes part has to be handled differently. It's a legit limitation on what content addressing can do, but it's one we can overcome by just not having everything be content addressed. The web we have now is like if you did a `git pull` every time you opened a file. The web I'm proposing is like how we actually use git--periodically pulling new hashes as a separate action, but spending most of our time browsing content that we already have hashes for.