[Cuis] IPFS on Smalltalk

[Joe Shirk]

Hi Juan,

I was trying to diplomatically imply that Benet's forte is not
presentation, however the docs on the site and on github are adequate
introductions, and I think it won't take long to see the value in what is
meant by "permanent" web that is content addressed instead of ip addressed.

I spoke too soon today, not aware that he had recently responded to my post
a week ago:

https:// <https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/issues/80#issuecomment-133593050>
github.com <https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/issues/80#issuecomment-133593050>/
<https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/issues/80#issuecomment-133593050>ipfs
<https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/issues/80#issuecomment-133593050>/
<https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/issues/80#issuecomment-133593050>ipfs
<https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/issues/80#issuecomment-133593050>
/issues/80#issuecomment-133593050
<https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/issues/80#issuecomment-133593050>

As at the moment I am thumbing my smartphone, I have to be brief, but I'll
try to cover the basics.

ipfs is a protocal that has the potential to eventually replace http
altogether, though currently content on the ipfs network is accessible
directly through the protocol as well as through http gateways.

ipfs is a content routing system, and so functions like a cdn, but it is
distributed, so is like bittorrent. it does sync like dropbox, but the
routing system ensures that copies of content migrate closer to demand,
which could be an auditorium of people on a local wifi without external
access. Real-time syncing to many peers is thus possible without latency.

There are working demos of HD videos streaming without latency from the
network.

The Directed Acyclical Graph / Merkel Tree allows for just about any data
structure, but is especially well designed for versioning. Everything is
addressed by its hash fingerprint, so one can be absolutely sure what
version one requests, but can also traverse the version tree if the content
referenced is say, a software library that is a dependency for a certain
package. Automatic forwarding to a more recent version is also a feature.

There is a name system too, that allows one to register a permanent or
temporary namespace that references a version tree of any object.

All objects are stored in encrypted chunks, so privacy and publicity are
controlled.

To me, this system implemented in smalltalk, and I suppose that should be
squeak and amber, will make it possible to build distributed apps, because
the app itself can be an object, not only its content or data. Implementing
in smalltalk should mean that the complexity involved would be more easily
managed with few bugs, compared to say, javascript or node.

I see ipfs as a route to put smalltalk in the limelight and on the cutting
edge.

HTH

Joe



> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2015 10:48:43 -0300
> From: Juan Vuletich <juan at jvuletich.org>
> To: Discussion of Cuis Smalltalk <cuis at jvuletich.org>
> Cc: Joe Shirk <j.b.shirk at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Cuis] IPFS on Smalltalk
> Message-ID: <55DB20BB.708 at jvuletich.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> Hi Joe,
>
> Someone saying "awesome!" and "cool!" so many times at his own stuff
> makes me a little uncomfortable... But, anyway:
>
> It looks like Dropbox, but peer to peer, right?
>
> The possibility of publishing and sharing stuff without a central
> provider is of course desirable.
>
> Before starting to implement bindings and calls to the api... Is that
> really needed? It is integrated in the file system, so maybe not.
>
> More interesting than that, what are some apps that could benefit from
> it? How would they do that?
>
> Cheers,
> Juan Vuletich
>
> On 8/24/2015 8:42 AM, Joe Shirk wrote:
> > Dear all, especially @Masashi
> >
> > I wanted to draw attention to the http://ipfs.io project, "the
> > permanent web" which works. It is a distributed peer-to-peer
> > filesystem that works somewhat like bittorrent. You get the
> > functionality of Git as well. It is truly ingenious.
> >
> > Since I have taken an interest in Smalltalk (I'm still learning) I
> > have salivated at the  possibilities for, say Amber + ipfs.
> >
> > There is currently a call for APIs implemented in other languages;
> > https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/issues
> > I see no one there is interested in Smalltalk so I though I should
> > undertake it, but it will be many months before I have the knowledge
> > and there is no guarantee that I am up to the task... Now seeing that
> > Masashi is working with filesystems, perhaps you would take an
> > interest in this idea.
> >
> > The inventor Juan Benet has many brilliant ideas and has done several
> > presentations to be found on the ipfs site. Unfortunately, he seems to
> > drink a lot of coffee and talks extremely fast and does not enunciate,
> > making the presentations very difficult to understand for those of
> > whom english is a second language. I can definitely help with this by
> > making a transcript if there is interest.
> >
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
> _______________________________________________
> Cuis mailing list
> Cuis at jvuletich.org
> http://jvuletich.org/mailman/listinfo/cuis_jvuletich.org
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of Cuis Digest, Vol 38, Issue 23
> ************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://jvuletich.org/pipermail/cuis_jvuletich.org/attachments/20150824/b30244e6/attachment-0004.html>