date: 24-02-2019 title: How I used p2p protocols to make simpler and more resilient software
Lately I've been working on a project called dat-mirror which lets you mirror p2p websites you author from a computer with a persistent connection, such as a raspberry pi. One of the main issues with p2p and beaker browser is that if you publish from your laptop, as soon as you close your laptop your page becomes unavailable. dat-mirror keeps a copy served from your pi so your site will always be available, including over http for people on mobile, or who don't have beaker.
The first version of this worked ok, but had enough setup complications and runtime gotchas that it wasn't worth releasing. After reading this tutorial on p2p libraries I was able to re-architect a lot of this to be more resilient, flexible, and easier to set up.
Without any p2p technology, the only way to connect to the da