CRDTs are the future (josephg.com)

Article summary

The article discusses the author's change of heart regarding Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs) and Operational Transforms (OT) for collaborative editing. The author, who previously worked on Google Wave and ShareJS, initially thought CRDTs were too slow and complicated, but after re-examining the literature and implementing a proof-of-concept CRDT, they now believe CRDTs are the future. CRDTs can provide a more scalable and decentralized solution for collaborative editing, but may require additional semantic checks to ensure coherence. The author sees CRDTs as a key component of a future where software prioritizes user ownership and control of data.

Main themes

• CRDTs vs OT
• Collaborative Editing
• Decentralized Systems
• Scalability
• Data Consistency
• Semantic Coherence
• Peer-to-Peer Systems
• Real-time Editing

What commenters say

• CRDTs can provide a scalable and decentralized solution for collaborative editing, but may not guarantee semantic coherence.
• The use case of shared editing is questionable, even with CRDTs, due to potential human-level editing conflicts.
• CRDTs can be used to automatically merge files and retain consistency, but may require more space to store edit history.
• Git's merge algorithm may not be directly replaceable with CRDTs, as they solve different problems.
• CRDTs can be useful in peer-to-peer systems or those with long periods of disconnection, where a central server is not available.
• The choice between OT and CRDTs depends on the specific use case and requirements of the application.
• CRDTs may not be suitable for all types of documents or data, and additional checks may be needed to ensure validity.
• The trade-off between using CRDTs and OT is a matter of complexity, scalability, and coherence guarantees.