The term "**Idempotent**" refers to any action that can be performed more than one time ==without causing side effects==. This has implications is system design (particularly [[Distributed Systems]]) and coding, where you may have issues sending a particular message, and you'd like to be able to simply re-send the message, but if two messages arrive saying the same thing they need to be functionally equivalent to one message. | Idempotent | NOT Idempotent | | ----------------------------------- | ---------------------------- | | Set Switch A to `on` | Toggle Switch A | | Request ABC123 received for 3 units | Request received for 3 units | | Set Daily_Sum = `6` | Add `1` to Daily_Sum | **** # More ## Source - Fireship, originally, - Conversation with Gemini