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+title = "seeing the forest through the trees"
+date = 2024-03-15
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+[extra]
+project = "thing-a-month (awareness)"
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+I’ve been pretty heads down trying to get the first version of tinyping done this week. Here are the highlights:
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+1. Automerge is very cool, and it seems like it might even be able to do the encrypted syncing that I want. Data migrations are really tricky though, though.
+2. I’m using Elm for this, since I’m super familiar with it, but the way I’m setting up the app right now means duplicating responsibility for data storage. Not great.
+3. The hardest part has been figuring out how to schedule pings according to the right distribution when there is no central authority. I *think* I have a solution though: using the last ping’s timestamp as a random seed should allow all clients to converge on the same sequence of pings. (Assuming the lambda value does not change, anyway!)
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+Despite the difficulties, I’m starting to see the bigger picture of how the app will work. That feels pretty encouraging!