App idea: Safe Layer. Let's talk about the data

[happybeing]

@DavidMtl

I don’t know the detail of their stack but it’s got to be tedious to try to build it on top of the traditional web server architecture. Safe makes thing so much more direct. You don’t need to make an effort to extract the data, it’s just there already. All you need is to make an effort to not screw it up

I think you might be surprised how close the two approaches are It surprised me, but when you think that the goals of both projects and the two main visionaries behind them are so similar, it makes sense that the solutions converge in key respects. So both projects can learn from each other.

We don’t have all the answers here and so using the extensive work already put in by Tim et al in this area could be a major win for us as well as for them, as you point out, seeing what SAFE might deliver. So big win win. David’s response to my earlier Solid + SAFE Synergy post reflected this I think.

To respond to the technical side, both projects follow a similar data model: simple storage API on the one hand, and putting the application complexity in the client (desktop or Web app) which, if you use common data standards, enables an ecosystem of applications creating and refusing each other’s data.

So both projects end up with essentially similar ways of doing this. The LDP in which the Solid standard is based is a RESTful interface for storing and retrieving data much like the SAFE NFS API which in turn was inspired by its carefully thought through predecessors on the Web. It’s like shared DNA, splitting and recombining in each generation, while evolving towards what is needed in the ever changing environment.

My impression (still learning) is that Solid is ahead on data standards, data processing, apps (obvs) and access control, but that SAFE is ahead on security, privacy, anonymity, authorisation, decentralisation, accessibility (not in all respects, so debatable). Solid is way ahead in allowing users to extract the maximum value and utility from data, both their own and whatever is public, or shared with them. While SAFE is way ahead on ease of deployment, scalability and maintenance (which ties into accessibility). Solid has a good story on identity, with some aspects we can learn from, but overall SAFE makes identification and authentication almost trivial, whereas it looks a bit of dogs breakfast on the Web (hard to understand, implement and use currently).

@oetyng

But maybe be you could start a thread were you explain more things, in detail? And maybe elaborate on how you see that it can be used and so on. It would be good to read anyway if that’s something you would want to do.

I’m still head down atm, but this will come. Hopefully something useful for the DevCon but it will take me longer to really understand and communicate it. @DavidMtl has helped a lot here by elaborating a framework which we can all use to understand these ideas better.

I’m very encouraged by the interest of this community in these ideas, and yours particularly @oetyng because you bring in so much up to date experience of building complex data systems, and areas I didn’t know existed, at least not as a formalised approach. So I look forward to further discussions, and I will start a topic soon where we can get deeper into Solid + SAFE side (remind and pester me if I’m too slow!). Check out the “Synergy” link above in case you missed that.