5 ms·

Every distributed system serves stale data. You can define away ‘stale’ by picking a consistency model, but look inside the consistency machinery and you will

• deleted 20d ago
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• fc417fc802 20d ago
  That's like refusing to use a fridge, insisting on letting your produce gradually spoil on the counter because "all harvested produce is in a state of decay anyway".
  • robotresearcher 19d ago
    No, it's using a fridge in the understanding of the fundamental limitations of fridges. You asked ‘why would I want to use a service that serves stale data’. The answer is you don’t want to. But if you have a distributed system your only choices are about the nature of the possible staleness, since global instantaneous consistency is known to be impossible due to fundamental features of the universe.
    • fc417fc802 19d ago
      In that case you're (intentionally?) misinterpreting what I originally said. The person I replied to was metaphorically suggesting turning the temperature dial on the fridge way up and I metaphorically asked why I would want to eat at his house if he's going to be serving me spoiled food. My original question could also be described as asking why I would choose to shop at a grocer where items on the shelf are routinely far past the printed expiry date. That's perhaps a more direct analogy.
      • robotresearcher 19d ago
        Your additional explanation does help clarify your meaning. Serving up records with TTLs in the past is so deeply weird that I didn't even consider that was what the grandparent had in mind.