FEP drafting: Am I using “side effects” here the same way as other ActivityPub developers?

@julian I use side-effect a lot when talking about ActivityPub activities and I mean it close in context to its functional programming meaning, where an action can have side-effects which are not immediately observable from its input or output.

Ie, when a Create activity determines a server to persist an object to disk that's a side-effect of the Create. When an Undo activity removes its object activity from disk, that's another side-effect. They are not immediately observable from the results of the Activity upon its server or its client.

Does that make sense?

@mariusor I think I get it, yeah. Would that still fit with my draft definition? It feels weird to call it a side effect when a `Like` towards an object gets added to its `likes` collection, since that's arguably part of the intended effect. But that's what I'm picking up from the standard as well: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#likes

@julian I think so, to me that sounds entirely correct, or at least I would understand what you mean.

@julian@fietkau.social yes you are correct as far as my limited understanding goes.

My personal definition of side effect limited to "unintended consequences", which differs greatly from the ActivityStreams definition, so for my own sanity I avoid the term in my own documents

@julian close enough, i guess? it's the stuff that happens after you POST (think ifttt, service processing, that kind of stuff)

they can be automatic or manual, often automatic in the way most people use the term but i personally allow manual processing of "side effects" too

@julian @mariusor intended effect = you receive a notification in your inbox that i like your thing

side effect = you can add it to the likes collection on that thing (or you might not -- that's your concern more than it is mine)

@trwnh I wish you'd stop necro-posting on things *I* am involved with.

You post opinions like they are facts and I dislike that a lot.

@julian i wouldn't call "show it on the web page" a side effect bc AP isn't about how to show something on a web page. adding a Like to a likes collection, or a reply to a replies collection, would indeed be a side effect to me (but note that i talk about "adding to", not "representing in").

@mariusor i don't check the forum every day, so sorry for "necro-posting" within less than a week, i guess?

is the request for me to just drop any mention of you when i am replying to things others said?

personally, you can treat everything i say as an opinion, but the difference between "opinion" and "fact" is a lot finer than most people assume. you can agree or disagree with what was said. if you agree, that might make it a fact to you. otherwise it's a matter of assertion vs objectivity