Comment by mlyle

Comment by mlyle 10 months ago

3 replies

View on Hacker News

> Yes. Do you really think I did not already know that?

Well, if the application and this mythical higher-level thing have to do things atomically and be tightly wed, but you're insistent on calling them different entities so that you can win an internet argument that the second one is not getting duplicate "deliveries" ... then that's honestly kind of sad.

The literature has used the term "delivery" like this basically 100% of the time for the past 20 years, and the majority of the time somewhere else. You can argue that your definition makes sense to you, but when everyone else uses the term the other way it's not helpful. Anyone can choose to define words differently from everyone else and then try to lawyer it out, but it's not likely to be useful or accepted.

lisper 10 months ago

> you're insistent on calling them different entities so that you can win an internet argument

No, I'm insistent on calling them different entities because in actual practice they can be, and indeed usually are, different entities. De-duping is usually done in the operating system, and applications usually run in user space.

Reply View 2 replies
  • mlyle 10 months ago

    No, as we're saying repeatedly at this point-- the application itself needs to tolerate multiple delivery, because if the deduplication isn't atomic with the application's actions, incorrect behavior results. Stacking on top of TCP doesn't fix this.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • lisper 10 months ago

      > if the deduplication isn't atomic with the application's actions, incorrect behavior results

      So? What do the application requirements have to do with the question of whether or not exactly-once delivery is possible? The application is a red herring. Why do you keep bringing it up?

      If you want to argue that exactly-once delivery is generally undesirable, that is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether or not it is possible, and the application requirements cannot possibly have any bearing on that.

      Reply View 0 replies