

The Joke-Publication of the Paxos Algorithm - nmc
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/pubs.html#lamport-paxos

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mcguire
_Buridan 's Principle_[1] is even better.

"My problems in trying to publish this paper and [22] are part of a long
tradition. According to one story I've heard (but haven't verified), someone
at G. E. discovered the phenomenon in computer circuits in the early 60s, but
was unable to convince his managers that there was a problem. He published a
short note about it, for which he was fired. Charles Molnar, one of the
pioneers in the study of the problem, reported the following in a lecture
given on February 11, 1992, at HP Corporate Engineering in Palo Alto,
California:

"'One reviewer made a marvelous comment in rejecting one of the early papers,
saying that if this problem really existed it would be so important that
everybody knowledgeable in the field would have to know about it, and "I'm an
expert and I don't know about it, so therefore it must not exist."'"

[1] [http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/lamport/pubs/p...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/lamport/pubs/pubs.html#buridan)

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kens
How does Paxos compare to the Bitcoin protocol? I've seen claims that Bitcoin
is the first practical solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem (e.g. from
Marc Andreessen recently), but it seems like Paxos is a better solution.
(Handles network partition, avoids arbitrary rollback, finite time to reach
consensus.)

Does anyone have a semi-rigorous explanation of what Bitcoin actually
accomplishes with BGP?

~~~
ryanobjc
At first I was annoyed by this comment, but then I realized, I was taken by a
very clever joke!

Hats off to you sir!

~~~
alexnewman
Indeed, I went through all of the stages of grief in about 12 seconds, and
then laughed

~~~
velis_vel
What's the joke?

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lmm
Reading, and understanding, an algorithm is hard at the best of times. Adding
a funny story makes it triply so. I'm currently trying to read a Haskell paper
where the authors seem more interested in impressing us with their shakespeare
allusions than actually explaining the thing and I'm starting to wish the
journal had rejected it.

The dry style of journals evolved that way for a reason.

~~~
mcguire
" _The dry style of journals evolved that way for a reason._ "

Because neither the authors of most scientific papers nor the editors of most
scientific journals and conference proceedings can _write_ well?

Now, _Paxos_ and the _Byzantine Generals_ thing are probably examples of
Lamport going too far in the other, impressed-with-his-own-wittiness
direction, but I've had many more problems understanding papers in the dry
style, where gibberish seems to be accepted if it's in the right form. (And
I'm looking at you, Flaviu Cristian.)

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tinco
That's crazy, I had to implement a distributed system a few years ago, after
some research I decided on using the Paxos algorithm. Never during my
implementation or research I noticed that the whole Greek backstory thing was
a joke.

Now when I reread the wiki article, I realise I must have read over one
crucial word in the summary:

"The Paxos protocol was first published in 1989 and named after a _fictional_
legislative consensus system used on the Paxos island in Greece"

