Re: [Blocks-development] Penny-arcade; blocks2?

[Erik M. <mo...@sc...>]

Hey Michael-
> Weird idea 3:  Armed with this new knowledge from this Programming Languages
> class, that breaks down the very act of executing statements into these
> fascinating "semantic reasoning" pieces:  I think we should build a kind of
> scripting language and execution environment within a filesharing network.
> I'm imagining an entire filesharing community of multiple clients (but
> nowhere near ALL clients on a network) expressed as a shared execution
> environment, where all the nodes cooperatively execute these scripts, with
> security and authentication and node-to-node communication as each statement
> is executed.  I'm imagining creative filesharing network users building and
> implementing completely new things that we never foresaw, using this
> environment.

I'm still here, waiting to see if there will be a final revival of
Blocks, which I still think is one of the most advanced anonymous file
sharing architectures (and hey, it clearly has the superior logo ;-). In
case you haven't noticed, Mute by Jason Rohrer has also gained some
traction:
http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/

Unfortunately virtually all P2P applications just focus on a single
aspect, namely the searching/sharing/downloading of stuff. There is
relatively little real innovation such as:
- P2P market places - think decentralized eBay
- webs of trust and ratings for content discovery
- collaboration networks like the one you describe (this issue is
broader than just scripting an encompasses what is currently done in
wikis, but also things like CVS and Subversion, and distributed
rendering)
- timecash and other new currency systems
- decentralized forums, chat (IIP is a first working solution here)
...

Really, we're doing only a very small subset of what is possible in
software. Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to point out what can be done
than to actually do it. The challenges of implementation are quite
significant, especially when it coems to apps like the one you describe
(keeping everything in sync, preventing abuse etc.).

The list you probably want to subscribe to in order to discuss these
things is p2p-hackers:
http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
It has 700+ subscribers, although traffic is low for such a large list.

And when it comes to documenting these ideas, I think the infoAnarchy
wiki is the place to use:
http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

I also suggest the following channels on irc.freenode.net:
	#p2p-hackers
	#esp
	#freenet
as well as
	#infoanarchy
on irc.oftc.net.

Regards,

Erik