Tracing a paradigm for externalization: Avatars and the GPII Nexus

摘要

We will situate the concept of an avatar (a working simulacrum of part of a system separated fromudit in space or time) with respect to traditional concepts of programming language and systems design.udWhilst much theory and practice argues in favour of insulation (the creation of architectural boundariesudprohibiting the leakage of information) we will find that many successful systems take a diametricallyudopposed approach. We name this family of systems as those based on externalised state transfer.udRather than hiding implementation details behind APIs, object interfaces or similar, these systems activelyudadvertise their internal structure and its coordinates via data and metadata. Examples of theseudsystems include RESTful web applications, MIDI devices, and the DWARF debugging file format. Weuddiscuss such systems and how we can purposefully design new systems embodying such virtues in a moreuddistilled form.