
Time is Partial: distributed consistency models and weak memory models - matt_d
http://composition.al/CMPS290S-2018-09/2018/11/17/time-is-partial-or-why-do-distributed-consistency-models-and-weak-memory-models-look-so-similar-anyway.html
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throwaway487548
> Time is Partial

This is definitely a new development in philosophy and even in physics. Joe
Armstrong would really appreciate this.

I almost could see it vividly - the beard, 0-rh designer glasses, macbook pro
with many stickers and a vegan smoothie. Time is partial, dude, you know.

~~~
jeffreygoesto
ROTFLBTC! Seriously, I always tell people that there is no global/common
"now()" in a (our _sigh_ ) distributed system. Leslie Lamport explained it
back in 1978 already [1]. Any design assuming that is doomed to fail.

[1] i.e. discussion at [https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/research/publication/time-cl...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/research/publication/time-clocks-ordering-events-distributed-system/)

~~~
throwaway487548
Not only this. In the domain of lazy functional languages they have arrived to
a similar conclusion - the only way to establish an order of evaluation in a
lazy language is via nesting of function calls, which is an implementation of
causality principle, if you think of it for a while. No wonder monads and
other things desugars into nested function calls.

"Time" is an abstract concept superimposed on reality, a product of the mind
conditioned via sequential sense organs. It is of the same nature as the
concepts of "god" and "divinity". Smart people are trying to rule it out from
their computations.

