#ossasepia | 2020-06-23

15:14

diana_coman: I'm trying for a concise intro/description of V, in the present (post-Republic) context. Does this about capture it: "versioning system that supports owner control of computing by placing primary focus on the change and explicit management of trust through strong cryptography" ?

15:16

15:14	jfw	diana_coman: I'm trying for a concise intro/description of V, in the present (post-Republic) context. Does this about capture it: "versioning system that supports owner control of computing by placing primary focus on the change and explicit management of trust through strong cryptography" ?
15:16	diana_coman	jfw - hm, what do you mean by "of computing" there?
15:17	jfw	well, of the operation of one's own computers
15:17	jfw	possibly a bit circular with "ownership of one's own"...
15:19	diana_coman	it's more that the definition as you gave it doesn't do all that much - though it takes a few readings, hm.
15:20	diana_coman	it's a bit tortured on various fences by the looks of it; for one thing, defining it as a versioning system cuts away an important part - the deployment of software that is usually not all that much the traditional concern of versioning systems
15:22	diana_coman	jfw - what's the audience you have in mind there or is this blog/generic?
15:23	jfw	it's the blog, yes - and partly for clarifying it for myself, heh.
15:23	jfw	my grasp of what V does for deployment is basically to say that the other tools traditionally used for it aren't necessary
15:24	diana_coman	ahaha, going for once fully-negative-space there (and that getting rid of all the other "tools" is not a tiny thing either at that, but it's more of a consequence than anything else)
15:25	diana_coman	V is a complete solution in that sense, hence "the other tools [...] aren't necessary"
15:25	jfw	(though um, it's still known to lean on 'wget' etc.)
15:26	diana_coman	well, it also still requires an OS!
15:27	diana_coman	anyways, I wouldn't say that "other tools are not necessary" - it's more that the change is so fundamental that previous tools don't fit /don't have a useful place anymore; other tools though are still necessary - only they need to be built
15:27	diana_coman	it changes the whole landscape if you want
15:27	diana_coman	but let's rewind and try to grab it from some more concrete end perhaps
15:28	jfw	alright
15:30	diana_coman	so for one thing, V is not some particular implementation but essentially a paradigm for software
15:31	diana_coman	and software as a whole, not just development, nor even just deployment, it goes all the way to even what software is
15:33	diana_coman	sure, one can use V for some narrow part that they care about and it's true that the first implementation was just that, a very narrow thing in fact, but that doesn't mean much.
15:35	diana_coman	and I suppose that the current state of V-use and development otherwise might give the impression that there isn't anything more to it either, huh
15:36	jfw	I suppose I've tried to understand the species based on observations of what's shared by the known instances
15:37	diana_coman	jfw - you know, I think your attempt and question there hits actually deeper (and well done for it, too) than you intended, lol
15:37	jfw	haha, indeed
15:39	diana_coman	jfw - so where did you start from, anyway? from the current implementations of V, is that what you mean by the instances?
15:39	jfw	right
15:40	jfw	heh, you know the one about the blind men and the elephant?
15:42	diana_coman	that kind of locks you unhelpfully into some rather sterile and narrow mindframe, myeah (and I'll leave the tracing of the root cause there to each log reader)
15:42	diana_coman	jfw - hm? doesn't come to mind, no.
15:44	jfw	apparently a story that exists in many versions, but basically each man feels a different part of the elephant and extrapolates a completely different (& quite incomplete) picture of what an elephant is.
15:45	diana_coman	ah, the fable, yes
15:46	diana_coman	I can see the similarity, indeed
15:47	jfw	https://allpoetry.com/The-Blind-Man-And-The-Elephant - possibly the main English version.
15:49	*	jfw ponders how to "see true v-elephant with mind's eye"
15:49	diana_coman	the thing is, V is not just a different type of versioning system - a bit like a car is not just a faster cart, hm
15:51	diana_coman	jfw - well, better start from the beginning as it were which indeed is not whatever implementation, no matter what claims are made otherwise; e.g. [http://trilema.com/2015/no-such-labs-releases-v-for-victory/?b=change&e=satellites#select][the change similar to that introduced by the understanding and controlling movement in terms of mass, impulse and energy, such as it occurs in the launching of
15:51	diana_coman	satellites]
15:52	diana_coman	damn, it still broke the link, didn't it
15:52	jfw	space between the words in the text, yeah
15:53	diana_coman	jfw - my, yrc can't recall previous line??