#ActivityPub dev tip of the day: An inbox (or outbox) is not a queue. An inbox is reverse chronological (LIFO-ish) and maintains long-term references to items. A queue has FIFO behavior and items are dequeued/removed for processing. AP is difficult enough without equating the inbox concept with MQ middleware (which could be a useful internal implementation technique).
I strongly suggest that only stable builds be considered for usage in this flagship instance.
In case of Firefish, making the flagship instance a sandbox was not a good decision. Also, the major database update did not live up to the expectations as timelines still continue to feel buggier.
Though not dead, since Firefish is not fast enough in fixing issues that affect real users and real admins, I see that some Firefish instances are migrating to Sharkey or Iceshrimp.
Otherwise, for the most part, usage of Firefish has been a nice experience.
From a user perspective, both Sharkey and Iceshrimp have good prospects.
A case of spec ambiguity, maybe? I can't find a mention in WebFinger or ActivityPub specs of usernames being case insensitive. Are @osma and @osma referring to the same actor? Is that up to implementation? How does a remote server determine which is correct?
Edit: I wrote above (at)Osma@mas.to and (at)osma@mas.to, but some part of the stack converted both to a lowercase mention during posting. I don't know which part, and what specs describes that.
To my knowledge there are no specifications for this. It's left completely to the implementation. Some projects have case-sensitive usernames and some do not. Some provide case-insensitive search and some do not. As a general rule, you'll often avoid issues if you use whatever form was used by the source of the information that you got it from.
@mikedev
Yep. I only ran into this when my server received messages with mixed conventions... Didn't have a unique lowercase index on the actors, so ended up having two records for the "same" one -- for informal understandings of sameness.
I should take a break from whining about #ActivityPub to crow about my big breakthrough. Today, I successfully sent my first messages and replies between #Emissary and #Mastodon. And all it required was a complete overhaul the custom ActivityPub outbox.
It’s a small step forward, but a huge milestone for me. Hopefully, it will translate to big wins for other devs who can use my #Golang libraries in the future.
Every now and then, technologists are able to translate their strongly held beliefs into action for the benefit of society. Sometimes these actions result in new features, apps or platforms but it's especially powerful when this happens at the protocol level.
In the latest episode of Dot Social I talk with @evan about how he helped get #ActivityPub started, how it's going, and what he hopes for next. Check it out here.
A new episode of Dot Social, the first podcast about the open social web, is out! In it, Flipboard CEO @mike chats with ActivityPub co-author @evan about what the protocol unlocks for builders and entrepreneurs, how open-source social networks change our relationships to content and each other, and why any of this matters at all. Learn more and take a listen!
I'm thinking I might stop using the term #fediverse#fedi or #activitypub when I want to talk about this community of federated social media services.
It's confusing and to be honest sounds way too much like a corporate brand trying to sell something.
I'm thinking I might start using something like "open internet" in general and "open social media" in particular to make the point that fedi isn't some specific thing; it's the default social media for the open internet.
I admit that it might be a bit of a "lies to children" (Pratchett et al), but it might be the first steps to carefully lead people away and towards a place where that brighter and wider future is visible.
I am using another term #Peopleverse, but not with intent for that to be a real name. More a vision for an online landscape that seamlessly aligns with our offline world and is in support of our daily lives.
Our CEO, @mike just launched a new podcast series titled "Dot Social" to explore the evolution of the internet and how new open standards, like #ActivityPub, can forever change the web and the world of social media.