27 lines
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1.7 KiB
Markdown
27 lines
No EOL
1.7 KiB
Markdown
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title = "an analogy between activitypub and programming languages"
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summary = "you don't say \"compatible with c++\" you say \"written in/with c++\". similarly, we might say that fedi is \"written with activitypub\" or \"implemented using activitypub\""
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date = "2023-03-28T09:13:00-06:00"
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source = "https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/110101321320240671"
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people think activitypub is a network protocol when it's really more like a programming language. you don't say "compatible with c++" you say "written in/with c++". similarly, we might say that fedi is "written with activitypub" or "implemented using activitypub", not "compatible with activitypub" or anything suggesting a network.
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analogously:
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ap = inter-process communication (e.g. d-bus)
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as2 = data interchange format (e.g. protobuf)
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json-ld = media type
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rdf = facts and logic
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if we're being honest the majority of "fedi" is part of the "network" that is "compatible with mastodon". mastodon *is* the network protocol. we just express it in terms of "mastodon-flavoured activitypub"
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put another way, there is no such thing as "fedi", but rather, multiple different and distinct "fedis" that only partially overlap.
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it occurs to me that activitypub may be best thought of as a cms with an optional distributed storage backend
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similarly: no one in fedi is doing real activitypub. it is probably more appropriate to say we are doing AS2 + Linked Data Notifications
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side effects are more accurately defined by the mastodon documentation than by the activitypub spec
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we're kind of in the situation where someone has invented the C Programming Language, maybe D-Bus, but we still don't have a FreeDesktop.org or XDG equivalent. |