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by bombardier6789 1353 days ago
What would be your definition of distributed?
1 comments
capableweb 1353 days ago
Going beyond the traditional client<>server/thin client architecture with at least 2 servers is what I'd consider distributed.
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jasode 1353 days ago
> with at least 2 servers is what I'd consider distributed.

There are several meanings of "distributed" :

(1) multiple servers coordination like Google's MapReduce BigTable, Cassandra, Hadoop, etc

(2) describing a split client+server architecture that may have just 1 server. This usage of "distributed architecture" in discussions was more common in 1980s/1990s with the rise of client/server computing. Visual Basic CRUD, PowerBuilder, SAP R/3, etc.

In the Jetbrains article, if you do Ctrl+F search for all occurrences of "distributed", it is clear they're talking about meaning (2): https://blog.jetbrains.com/fleet/2022/06/fleet-below-deck-pa...

To answer your previous question: >I'm guessing they mean the architecture is decoupled, [...] but with a fancier word?

It's not a fancier word. Jetbrains is re-using an existing description of "distributed==client/server" that's been around for decades. It's just that "distributed computing" has been recently dominated by the examples of meaning (1) above.

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