4 ms·

I get the impression the author doesn't have a clue what 'realtime' means. I appreciate he is trying to say 'within seconds' but that is not realtime, true rea

by mbell 14y ago

I get the impression the author doesn't have a clue what 'realtime' means. I appreciate he is trying to say 'within seconds' but that is not realtime, true realtime is a completely different game.

protomyth 14y ago
Yep, twitter is not the classical realtime taught in school. He probably would have done better by referring to it as "everyone in the same living room commenting on the TV". Its timeliness is directly linked to how many people are at / watching the same event. The tweets about a NASCAR race or the plane coming down in the Hudson really would be a pain / confusing if received hours later. For a lot of stuff, this doesn't matter so much (like e-mail). "Pause and Consider" is pretty much a lost concept in the online news world. Look at the Apple screw fiasco for a point when the repeaters didn't. Maybe having a distributed network of sorta timely servers wouldn't be such a bad thing. I seem to remember debates happening fairly rapidly on USENET.
- thinkingisfun 14y ago
  There ought to be a way to bring IRC into all this..
  - ChiperSoft 14y ago
    Exactly, IRC networks have been realtime AND decentralized for decades, they even solved the redundant data problem.
- mbell 14y ago
  > Maybe having a distributed network of sorta timely servers wouldn't be such a bad thing. I seem to remember debates happening fairly rapidly on USENET. I believe this is what twitter does. At least that is the impression I have as a user. Having 'watched' a number of live events on twitter I tend to get a floods of 10-30 tweets at a time all in the same language. I presume this means there is a delay related to geographic servers packing up multiple tweet for replication.
volaski 14y ago
Why do you get that impression? I do have a clear understanding of realtime in the sense you are implying. That kind of "realtime" system is actually closer to the point I'm trying to make. Generally centralized architecture is better for building robust and reliable systems than decentralized. In fact it would be great if you could share some counter examples.
- mbell 14y ago
  'Realtime' may have many definitions but those I'm familiar with relate to near instantaneous feedback based control systems. More generally it applies to systems with mandatory and very limited time constraints. A common high level software example would be algorithmic stock trading. A more historically proper 'realtime' system is code/hardware that put MSL rover on the ground on Mars. These are not things which twitter does. Their UI may give the impression of 'realtime', their systems however are not, nor do they even pretend to be realtime systems. In short, you've taken a term and misappropriated it based on marketing hype. That is a reasonable thing to do when pitching to a bunch of consumers/marketing folks, it doesn't usually set all that well with engineers.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - volaski 14y ago
    Like you said, "realtime" has many definitions. And I disagree it's a misappropriated term based on marketing hype. Twitter IS realtime, just in a different context. If you stick to your strict definition, it would be incorrect to even call things like XMPP realtime.
    - mbell 14y ago
      I have no idea how your bringing XMPP into this but just as Node, AMQP, ActiveMQ, ZeroMQ, Jetty, or <insert messaging or async tool here> they have have no singular impact on a system being realtime or not, they are just tools. If you want to consider a system which involves these tools and has a realtime constraint e.g. X arrives before Y time or we're seriously screwed, then sure, I'll happily concede and call the system, not the tool, realtime.

by mbell 14y ago

I get the impression the author doesn't have a clue what 'realtime' means. I appreciate he is trying to say 'within seconds' but that is not realtime, true realtime is a completely different game.

protomyth 14y ago

Yep, twitter is not the classical realtime taught in school. He probably would have done better by referring to it as "everyone in the same living room commenting on the TV". Its timeliness is directly linked to how many people are at / watching the same event. The tweets about a NASCAR race or the plane coming down in the Hudson really would be a pain / confusing if received hours later. For a lot of stuff, this doesn't matter so much (like e-mail). "Pause and Consider" is pretty much a lost concept in the online news world. Look at the Apple screw fiasco for a point when the repeaters didn't. Maybe having a distributed network of sorta timely servers wouldn't be such a bad thing. I seem to remember debates happening fairly rapidly on USENET.

thinkingisfun 14y ago
There ought to be a way to bring IRC into all this..
- ChiperSoft 14y ago
  Exactly, IRC networks have been realtime AND decentralized for decades, they even solved the redundant data problem.
mbell 14y ago
> Maybe having a distributed network of sorta timely servers wouldn't be such a bad thing. I seem to remember debates happening fairly rapidly on USENET. I believe this is what twitter does. At least that is the impression I have as a user. Having 'watched' a number of live events on twitter I tend to get a floods of 10-30 tweets at a time all in the same language. I presume this means there is a delay related to geographic servers packing up multiple tweet for replication.

volaski 14y ago

Why do you get that impression? I do have a clear understanding of realtime in the sense you are implying. That kind of "realtime" system is actually closer to the point I'm trying to make. Generally centralized architecture is better for building robust and reliable systems than decentralized. In fact it would be great if you could share some counter examples.

mbell 14y ago
'Realtime' may have many definitions but those I'm familiar with relate to near instantaneous feedback based control systems. More generally it applies to systems with mandatory and very limited time constraints. A common high level software example would be algorithmic stock trading. A more historically proper 'realtime' system is code/hardware that put MSL rover on the ground on Mars. These are not things which twitter does. Their UI may give the impression of 'realtime', their systems however are not, nor do they even pretend to be realtime systems. In short, you've taken a term and misappropriated it based on marketing hype. That is a reasonable thing to do when pitching to a bunch of consumers/marketing folks, it doesn't usually set all that well with engineers.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- volaski 14y ago
  Like you said, "realtime" has many definitions. And I disagree it's a misappropriated term based on marketing hype. Twitter IS realtime, just in a different context. If you stick to your strict definition, it would be incorrect to even call things like XMPP realtime.
  - mbell 14y ago
    I have no idea how your bringing XMPP into this but just as Node, AMQP, ActiveMQ, ZeroMQ, Jetty, or <insert messaging or async tool here> they have have no singular impact on a system being realtime or not, they are just tools. If you want to consider a system which involves these tools and has a realtime constraint e.g. X arrives before Y time or we're seriously screwed, then sure, I'll happily concede and call the system, not the tool, realtime.