When the Snapdragon headquarters was renovated, considering that the company would often hold various technical lectures, the conference room was made very spacious, and the conference table was also composed of 6 independent small tables, and after dismantling, each small table was equipped with 5 plastic stools without backrests, which could turn the conference room into a multi-functional classroom that could accommodate more than 30 people in a few minutes. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

"In a narrow sense, a distributed system refers to a computer system connected by a network, each computing node undertakes independent computing and storage, and works together through the network, in which the asynchronous network is the mainstay, according to the FLP principle, the asynchronous network is unreliable by default, so we need to take a mechanism to solve the Consensus problem to ensure that the state of each host finally reaches the same consistency......"

"The consensus problem consists of the following three aspects: first, termination, all processes will eventually end in a finite number of steps and choose a value, and the algorithm will not execute endlessly, second, agreement, all non-faulty processes must agree on the same value, and third, validity, the final agreed value must be V1 to Vn, if all initial values are vx, then the final result must also be vx......"

The Snapdragon headquarters has a limited area and cannot cope with hundreds of netizens visiting at the same time, so it has adopted a time-based visit strategy, and during the Internet conference, a bus will be arranged to pick up netizens every morning, noon and evening, so that everyone will have enough time to visit after three days.

On the morning of August 18th, only experts and reporters were arranged to visit, but some anxious netizens took a taxi by themselves, many of them were programmers and students who wanted to come to Snapdragon to work or intern, and they heard that Du Qiu had written two powerful papers, and they were also very curious like the Jinshan trio, so when the academic seminar officially began, more than 50 people poured into the conference room, and many netizens could only stand by the wall and listen.

8What the hell is the boss talking about? I understand every word, but when put together, I don't know what it means. ”

"It's normal to not understand, don't you see Senior Brother Wang is also confused, he is a top student with a master's and doctorate. ”

"Forget it, let's go to Sanjiang University to play, don't be a puppet here, 8 boss just said, if you don't understand, you can leave at any time. ”

When Du Qiu finished talking about the very important FLP impossibility principle in distributed systems according to the slides prepared in advance, the audience in the conference room had been reduced by more than half, and there were less than 30 people left, and one of the professors about 40 years old said: "Xiao Du, we all know these basic knowledge, don't waste time, just talk about the Paxos algorithm and the Raft algorithm you studied." ”

"Lao Pan, don't rush, this Paxos algorithm is a bit winding, not easy to understand, let Du Qiu say it in detail, otherwise my two students may not understand." ”

After the netizens left, the most confused people in the conference room were reporters from various professional media, although they hung the titles of professional media, in fact, they were all from popular publications such as "Computer News", "China Computer News", "Computer Enthusiasts", etc., not real professionals, and they also did not understand academic papers full of English terms and mathematical formulas.

But none of these reporters left, because before the seminar began, Liu Yunlai sent each of them a list of experts who participated in the conference, and each expert was followed by a large row of glossy information such as academic qualifications, titles, professional titles, and award records.

So many awesome experts came to Cloud City thousands of miles away to listen to the lectures of a person like Du Qiu, who did not have a primary school diploma, and there were still professors who were worried that the doctor he brought could not understand......

This is a very gimmicky, very eye-catching big news!

A female reporter took advantage of Du Qiu's drinking time to pat an expert in his 20s who looked like he was studying for a doctorate in the front row, and asked softly, "Du Qiu's research is very powerful?"

His papers are of high academic value and have been recognized by several top international scholars, including Butler Lampson, winner of the 1992 Turing Award. ”

The Turing Award is an award established by the American Computer Society in 1966, specifically to recognize individuals who have made important contributions to the computer industry, the award conditions are very demanding, and the selection procedure is extremely strict, so it is known as the "Nobel Prize in the computer industry", and each winner is a great scientific giant, the reporter then understood why these experts came to Cloud City, so he asked: "Du Qiu's paper was published in which authoritative journal?"

"Internet. The expert was a little impatient, and reminded without looking back: "Don't talk, Du Qiu is going to start talking about the Paxos algorithm officially." ”

"The Paxos algorithm was proposed by Leslie Lambert, a well-known American distributed systems expert, in 1990, because the reviewers of ACM-TOCS - that is, the Transactions on Computer Systems of the American Computer Federation - did not understand his paper and refused to publish it, so he published the paper on the Internet, and when I went to the United States on a business trip in March, I couldn't sleep at night because of the time difference, so I downloaded this paper......"

The reporters were already drowsy from the torment of boring and esoteric papers, but they immediately refreshed themselves when they heard this, because this was another very gimmicky news material.

The Transactions on Computer Systems of the American Computer Federation is one of the most authoritative international top journals in the computer industry, and there are still papers in the world that even their reviewers can't understand......

But Du Qiu actually understood!

It is said that when Einstein's "Theory of Relativity" was published, no one could understand it, but later it directly or indirectly gave birth to many Nobel Prize winners, the Turing Award is the Nobel Prize in the computer industry, and since Du Qiu's paper can be affirmed by Butler Lampson, he may be able to win the Turing Award in the future.

If Du Qiu, who didn't even graduate from elementary school, won the Turing Award, I don't know how those university professors would feel......

It's so interesting, I've got to think of a headline......

If Du Qiu has the ability to think in perspective, he must appreciate the imagination of this reporter, because in a sense, the Paxos algorithm is indeed a bit similar to the theory of relativity, whether it is important or story--relativity is the cornerstone of modern physics, which gave birth to quantum physics and changed the world, and the Paxos algorithm is the cornerstone of distributed systems, giving birth to cloud computing and changing the Internet.

Even Leslie Lambert, the inventor of the Paxos algorithm, has similarities with Einstein, not only with extraordinary academic achievements and fruitful results, but also with a maverick and distinctive personality, when he proposed the Paxos algorithm in 1990, he fictionalized a Greek city-state and deduced the algorithm in the form of storytelling. Rejected for reason, and then put the paper directly on the Internet.

In the early 90s, the influence of the Internet was not big enough, and after the paper was issued, no one cared about it, until 1996, when Turing Award winner Butler Lampson discovered this paper, he understood it, and then recommended it to the industry, which attracted attention, and when ACM-TOCS republished the paper in 1998, Leslie Lambert did not edit at all, insisted on not changing a word, and the editor had no choice but to write a note to laugh at himself, saying that it was not that they didn't understand it back then, but just forgot to publish it……

However, the Paxos algorithm is really esoteric and difficult to understand, and after the paper was published, the industry generally responded that it could not be understood and could not be implemented at all, so Leslie Lambert rewrote a paper in 2001 "Paxos Simplification", which did not use a mathematical formula and explained the Paxos algorithm in a logical reasoning way, which made the Paxos algorithm easier to understand.

In fact, "relatively easy to understand" is limited to those who are technically savvy, and even in 2016, the Paxos algorithm is still a hateful thing, so there is a saying in the industry that in the past decade or so, there is only one person who has done the distributed consensus protocol right, and that is paxos itself.

However, the Paxos algorithm is the most important basic algorithm in a distributed system, so there is another saying that there is only one consensus algorithm in the world, and that is Paxos, and all other algorithms are defective.

In order to solve the dilemma that the Poxas algorithm is difficult to understand, in 2013, two PhDs from Stanford University wrote a paper "Finding an Easy-to-Understand Consensus Algorithm", and launched an algorithm called Raft, which is actually an improved and simplified version of the Poxas algorithm.

In order to brush up his prestige, Du Qiu dug out two papers from his laptop in May, "Paxos Simplification" and "Finding an Easy-to-Understand Consensus Algorithm", and when he went to work at Microsoft in June, he got Butler Lampson's email address and sent him the slightly revised paper, and by the time he left the United States in mid-July, the two had exchanged emails with each other more than a dozen times, and received the attention of several professors at MIT and Stanford University.

After returning to China, Du Qiu obtained the consent of these people, printed out the content related to the Paxos algorithm in the email, and spread it to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and various universities through Liu Yunlai's operation, which immediately attracted the attention of many experts in China, on the one hand, Butler Lampson is famous and full of weight, on the other hand, Leslie Lambert, the inventor of the Paxos algorithm, is not a nobody, as early as the end of the 70s, he has been a god in the field of distributed systems, and has many academic achievements, and will win the Turing Award in 2013 in the future。

You must know that with the development of the Internet, the requirements for computing and storage are getting higher and higher, the traditional stand-alone server will definitely not be able to meet the needs, distributed systems are the direction of future development, and the consistency problem is a hot research object in this field, and now a Paxos algorithm has suddenly appeared, if you can seize the opportunity, before others have started to study, make a few papers out, the probability of publication in top journals will be relatively large, and you don't have to worry about evaluating job titles and grabbing funds in the future.

“…… The above is a graphical and mathematical proof of the Paxos algorithm. After Du Qiu finished explaining, he looked at the time and announced: "It's already half past eleven, let's stop here today, about the Raft algorithm, we will discuss it tomorrow." ”

"Hey, I said Xiao Du, aren't you hanging people's appetite, wait until tomorrow the daylilies are cold, continue this afternoon." ”

"That's right, since it's a seminar, you can't just run away after you finish it, and we haven't discussed the issue yet. ”

"I still have to attend a press conference held by the Yuncheng government in the afternoon, and I really can't help it. Du Qiu turned off the slides, motioned for an employee to open the curtains, and then said: "If you can't wait, in the afternoon, Manager He Lixing of our company's operating system R&D department will talk about the Raft algorithm, Manager He has studied at Carnegie Mellon University, and is much stronger than half a bucket of water like me." ”

He Lixing, who was sitting in the front row, stood up cooperatively, he was not good at words, pursued the principle of saying less and doing more, did not say anything about the scene, bowed and sat back.

"Mr. He has a lot of experience in the engineering implementation of the Raft algorithm, and wrote a paper last month, which Butler Lampson thought was very valuable after reading it, and recommended him to submit it to IEEE-Transaction-on-Computers. ”

IEEE is the abbreviation of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and "IEEE-Transaction-on-Computers" is the top journal in the field of computer science under its umbrella.

Bustling and going, all for fame and fortune, waving banknotes in one hand, holding academics in the other, high salaries and honors go hand in hand, and there is no need to worry about talents not coming to ......

If it goes well, by this time next year, we will be able to set up the Snapdragon Research Institute and compete with IBM and Microsoft for high-end talent in China......