Mike and Erik return to the CAP Theorem to finish the discussion started last week. Their goal is to try to find answers to this question: why do software engineers love to talk about the CAP Theorem so much? This episode covers the 2002 Gilbert and Lynch proof of CAP, as well as more recent critiques of the CAP Theorem, mostly based on Martin Kleppeman's article “Please Stop Calling Databases CP OR AP”.

Links

• Brewer’s “Towards Robust Distributed Systems” (slideshow of the talk!)
• FLP Paper: Impossibility of Distributed Consensus with One Faulty Process (1985)
• Lynch: “A Hundred Impossibility Proofs for Distributed Computing” (1989)
• Lynch and Gilbert prove CAP Conjecture: “Brewer's conjecture and the feasibility of consistent, available, partition-tolerant web services” (2002)
• Martin Kleppeman “Please Stop Calling Databases CP OR AP”
• “Highly Available Transactions: Virtues and Limitations”

Send us a text

Your podcast hosts have a suspicion about the CAP Theorem: if you're a working programmer and you've heard of any results in the field of distributed systems, we think you'll have heard of the CAP Theorem. But did you ever wonder where it comes from? In this episode, we try to tell the story of where the CAP Theorem comes from. THERE WILL BE BLUEBERRIES!!!

Reach us by email: podcast@picturemecoding.com
Sponsor us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PictureMeCoding

Links

• 2000 PODC website
• Brewer’s “Towards Robust Distributed Systems” (slideshow of the talk!)
• FLP Paper: Impossibility of Distributed Consensus with One Faulty Process (1985)
• Lynch: “A Hundred Impossibility Proofs for Distributed Computing” (1989)
• Brewer Interview in 2015: https://medium.com/s-c-a-l-e/google-systems-guru-explains-why-containers-are-the-future-of-computing-87922af2cf95
• Brewer interview with Software Engineering Daily 2023: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2023/05/12/cap-theorem-23-years-later/
• A Theoretical View of Distributed Systems: Nancy Lynch (2021 Talk)

Send us a text

This week Nathan Mull, a type theorist and CS Professor at Boston University, came on the show to help Mike and Erik understand what the phrase "Propositions as Types" is all about. This is an idea about how programs are connected to logic and mathematical proofs, whether we want them to be or not! You know that program that orders pizza from Dominos?! Yes, even that program is a proof of something. Find out what it proves on this episode of Picture Me Coding!

Links

• Nathan Mull's personal site
• 2014 Philip Wadler Paper: Propositions as Types
• 2016 Strangeloop Conference recording (Youtube): "Propositions as Types" by Philip Wadler

Send us a text