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I promise, you do not need to explain to me how something _can_ be done in ActivityPub. I am aware that things _can_ be done.

The problem I am highlighting is virtually never "I can't see a _way to do this in ActivityPub_."

It is almost always a question of standards and interoperability and what would be required to get to that point.

Hrefna (DHC)

One of the core, key, challenges I've talked about in ActivityPub and that I come back to repeatedly is the lack of out-of-the-box interop, ways to demonstrate interop, or ways to prove compliance.

It's easy to say "oh this is a solved problem in MFTS (my favorite toy server)." It's easy to come up with _ways_ to solve it.

That's pretty much never my point.

@hrefna@hachyderm.io if I understand correctly, it's not that there aren't solutions, it's that there isn't a solution? The core fundamentals should have a single correct defined way to do them?

apologies if I've misunderstood

@Cyborus Basically yes. Also that we can't demonstrate compliance with any solution because the problem is often underspecified, but yes.

Or, if you prefer:

It's not that the problem can't be solved in theory, it is that it practice it requires a lot more than simply demonstrating one way to do it in theory, or in an environment that is not applicable to 90+% of deployed installations.

@Cyborus Ultimately what this comes down to is looking at the problem in a different _frame_.

For example, in discussing server migrations: The question is not "can I make it so that two servers that both have 12 deployments each and cannot talk to anyone else can be easily migrated between."

But rather: what would it take so that the average deployment—and the median fediverse user/instance—can easily migrate?

This also allows us to compare affordances with, say, BlueSky.

@hrefna Thanks for these conversations in the open.
Caveat:For 10yrs I designed & installed datacenter application server infrastructure+ software.
There are standards specified for everything to address physics, chemistry & human cognitive limits-cabling, rack mount+blade positions, electricity supply & shielding to avoid magnetizing, operating system+firmware+networking+webserver+app-server+application config & reference implementation.

AP is 1 protocol, without a reference implementation.

@YurkshireLad in the parentheses.

My Favorite Toy Server, a reference to MFTL (my favorite toy language): catb.org/jargon/html/M/MFTL.ht

www.catb.orgMFTL

@hrefna thanks. I wasn’t sure if that was referring to an actual product.