5 ms·
The Raft consensus algorithm explained through "Mean Girls" (2019)
- BSTRhino 6mo agoThat is so fetch! In all honesty though, I quite enjoyed how this article was written. Is there a listing somewhere of articles written like this, with algorithms or concepts explained using analogies to pop culture?
- pragmatick 6mo agoNot what you asked for but you may enjoy Pitch Perfect 237: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiC9X_MoE1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiC9X_MoE1M
- mi_lk 6mo agoThe guy has a point
- noahflynn 6mo agoSubmodular optimization explained through "Gossip Girl" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ3ErkmUpLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ3ErkmUpLU
- jfengel 6mo agoStop trying to make fetch happen.
- xyzal 6mo agoAs a lover or Raft Consensus Algorithm, now I have to watch Mean Girls I guess.
- EdwardDiego 6mo agoWhich movie would you use to explain Paxos?
- interloxia 6mo ago"Chat generate a blog post on paxos but explain it through Mad Max: Fury Road"
- defrost 6mo agoThe Postman (1997) restoration of packet messaging across unreliable transport.
- cocodill 6mo agoI looked through the gifs and ended up understanding even less than before.
- SomaticPirate 6mo ago“Chat generate me an explanation blog posts on the Raft consensus algorithm… but explain it through mean girls”
- Cthulhu_ 6mo agoIt's from 2019, it predates ChatGPT and co. Your comment and criticism is not valid.
- diorrkrk 6mo ago[flagged]
- eru 6mo agoAt the risk of going even more off-topic: > Mean Girls demonstrate how patriarchy shapes young girls, [...] Of course, young girls have no agency and the only thing shaping them is the mean patriarchy... /s
- lynx97 6mo agoSupposedly having no agency and being opressed seems to be the universal narrative, even with groups that are not even a minority. It gets worse with real minorities. But I know an increasing number of women who are fed up with this victimhood mentality. Its a slipery slope. Because once you believe in you being a victim, you likely reduce your effort to take matters into your own hand. And there is even a feedback loop. Because once you start whining, people perceive you as such and a stereotype is reinforced.
- lwhi 6mo agoThose people are a good candidates for the burn book.
- trick-or-treat 6mo agoIs that your real take? The girls have the power in that movie they manipulate the boys not the other way around. The adults are oblivious (except for Tina). There is no patriarchy.
- DarkNova6 6mo agoThis is another way of telling us you haven't seen the movie without telling us you haven't seen the movie.
- defrost 6mo agoIt ably demonstrates the propensity of IT industry drive by commenters to be confidently, totally, utterly incorrect in every aspect of what they opine.
- trick-or-treat 6mo agoThey need to stop trying to make fetch a thing.
- skeptrune 6mo agolmao, i love this
- dang 6mo agoPreviously: Raft Is So Fetch: The Raft Consensus Algorithm Explained Through Mean Girls - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33071069 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33071069 - Oct 2022 (53 comments) Raft Is So Fetch: The Raft Consensus Algorithm Explained Through Mean Girls - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22520040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22520040 - March 2020 (4 comments)
- up2isomorphism 6mo agoBut why?
- 7e 6mo agoGiven that Raft was rederived simply because the authors couldn’t originally understand Paxos, I’m not surprised to see this.
- sateesh 6mo agoAs someone who doesn't know/watched "Mean Girls" this seems confusing. Also I don't think it is fair to assume that reading of a blog post makes one to understand Raft better, at best they pique one's interest to learn more about it. IMHO Reading/re-reading of the Raft paper and working through an instructional implementation like (https://github.com/eliben/raft https://github.com/eliben/raft) provides a better understanding.
- cestith 6mo agoIt’s not explaining any deep technical details. Think of it as a gentle introduction to the idea for someone to explain why they might want to read the paper, before reading the paper.
- sateesh 6mo agoIf the article was intended to be an intro to "Raft" algorithm I would've agreed with your sentiment. But this is what the article starts with: Understanding Raft can be tough. In fact, I’ve seen conversations recently on social media in which actual technical leaders of infrastructure companies demonstrate a lack of understanding (!). Point being, you’re not alone. Anyway I now notice that the article was written in 2023, probably I'm being too pedantic.
- cestith 6mo agoI think the point being made (I’m not the author after all) is not that they are misunderstanding how Raft achieves consensus, but what it means in the first place when we speak of it doing so and why that’s useful. By “technical leaders” here, one might think of CTOs, directors, and senior managers over technical teams rather than senior ICs.
- ihucgfdcjibhg 6mo ago[dead]
- fedorsapronov 6mo ago[flagged]
- tylerhou 6mo agobot, or someone heavily using an LLM. all 26 “papers” listed on orcid were written in 2026 and “published” on zenodo