Fallacies of Distributed Computing
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The Fallacies of Distributed Computing are a set of common but flawed assumptions made by programmers when first developing distributed applications. The fallacies are summarized as follows [1]:
- The network is reliable.
- Latency is zero.
- Bandwidth is infinite.
- The network is secure.
- Topology doesn't change.
- There is one administrator.
- Transport cost is zero.
- The network is homogeneous.
[edit] History
The list of fallacies generally came about at Sun Microsystems. Peter Deutsch, one of the original Sun "Fellows," is credited with penning the first seven fallacies in 1994; however, Bill Joy and Tom Lyon had already identified the first four as "The Fallacies of Networked Computing" [2] (the article claims "Dave Lyon," but this is considered a mistake). Around 1997, James Gosling, another Sun Fellow and the inventor of Java, added the eighth fallacy.