Comment by alganet

Comment by alganet 6 months ago

The following section of the Wave whitepaper suggests that the chat app aspect was minor to the project. It was all about solving collaborative rich text editing:

> Waves are hosted XML documents that allow seamless and low latency concurrent modifications.

The following section suggests that the Wave team had a specific goal related to rich text OT extensions, which were NOT trivial at the time:

> There are others that offer rich text, such as Google Docs, but do not offer a seamless live concurrent editing experience, as merge failures can occur.

It also suggests that it was specifically intended to be featured later in Google Docs (it would not make sense to dunk on their own product). It actually doesn't matter if it is the same team or not. It is common to have a dedicated R&D separate from the deliver team for such breakthroughs.

resoluteteeth 6 months ago

I'm not saying it necessarily wasn't used in docs but it seems like you also don't have any information indicating that it actually was and are just assuming that it must have been, so I would ideally want confirmation from someone who was actually involved with it at Google.

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alganet 6 months ago

I provided enough information, including the Google Wave team _explicitly_ citing the feature on Google Docs before it was launched. This is way more than an assumption.
If you have any doubts about it, feel free to contact Google.

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- resoluteteeth 6 months ago
  
  > I provided enough information, including the Google Wave team _explicitly_ citing the feature on Google Docs before it was launched. This is way more than an assumption.
  You just quoted a part where it mentioned that google docs didn't have collaborative editing at the time. That's not the same thing as saying that the google docs collaborative editing was then based on google wave.
  Again, you may very well be right, but you haven't provided any source actually indicating that google docs collaborative editing was based on wave.
  
  Reply View | 1 reply
  
  alganet 6 months ago
  
  I'm not confident you would be able to recognize a valid source if you saw it, and I'm not confident you understand what I claimed.
  Let me sum up this:
  Rich text OT, first appeared in Google Wave, and eventually became the technology used in collaborative editing in Google Docs. That is a fact.
  What if it was made by another team?
  It doesn't matter. Rich text OT, first appeared in Google Wave, and eventually became the technology used in collaborative editing in Google Docs. That is a fact.
  What if they discarded the entire Wave codebase?
  It doesn't matter. Rich text OT, first appeared in Google Wave, and eventually became the technology used in collaborative editing in Google Docs. That is a fact.
  What if both teams were researching the same stuff?
  It doesn't matter. Rich text OT, first appeared in Google Wave, and eventually became the technology used in collaborative editing in Google Docs. That is a fact.
  --
  Up until I mentioned OT, there was room for ambiguity. Was I talking about the _product_ becoming Google Docs or the _technology_ being used in it? The onus was on me.
  As soon as I clarified the issue, you should have recognized what I was talking about. You didn't.
  
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