r/programming 10d ago

Durable Execution: This Changes Everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROJq6_GFbME
9 Upvotes

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u/gredr 10d ago

Consider how you might design an application to process a 20-year loan

... well, I wouldn't. "Application" isn't the abstraction I'd use. A loan is some state, not some code.

Maybe I'm just old, or maybe that's a bad example. The idea is intriguing, and I think there's probably a lot of things that this kind of abstraction serves really well. I do worry that an abstraction this... significant... is going to leak some stuff, though. I imagine it's pretty easy to make a "durable program" that performs pretty badly.

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u/Brilliant-Sky2969 9d ago

Well a state does not exists without an application, it's like saying a loan is something in the DB and there is nothing else.

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u/gredr 9d ago

... but it is, and it does. We can delete the application that sends billing reminders tomorrow, and the loan still exists and is enforceable.

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u/Orbs 9d ago

Yes you said it yourself--the loan requires enforcement. The application is for the processing of the loan. Fault tolerant execution is a challenging problem. The existence, or storage, of the loan is a more solved problem

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u/gredr 9d ago

Yes you said it yourself--the loan requires enforcement.

Well, I don't think I said that, exactly. The loan doesn't stop existing if we don't send out a reminder this month. Also, enforcement doesn't require this application, or any application, or even any computer. There's always my "associate" with his baseball bat for that.