Comment by GermanJablo 4 days ago
Interesting read. I’ve spent the past two years developing my own CRDT, but along the way, I realized a CRDT involves too many trade-offs, so I ended up implementing an ID-based OT framework. Coincidentally, I’m planning to launch it this Tuesday, so here’s an exclusive for you: https://docnode.dev. I'd like to hear your thoughts!
In the future, I plan to add a CRDT mode for scenarios where P2P is required.
Hi Seph, great to hear from you! I emailed you about a week ago with a private beta to thank you for your contributions (you’re in the acknowledgements section [1]) and to ask for your feedback. I’m not sure if I got your email right.
The tradeoffs I mention mostly concern metadata: insert (OriginLeft, OriginRight), delete (tombstones), and moving (a full topic, you know what I mean).
I know that with eg-walker you managed to reduce those costs by loading metadata into memory only when required. Still, I believe that for me, and for many others, a central server makes more sense, since P2P is a requirement for very few.
DocNode isn’t traditional OT. It’s ID based instead of positional. I essentially started from a CRDT and stripped out the compromises that come with supporting P2P.
That said, CRDT trade-offs weren’t my only motivation for building DocNode. Even if I had gone with a “classic” CRDT, I wanted a different API and a new approach to type safety.
On top of that, I also have a non-mainstream stance regarding text CRDTs. I wrote a blog post explaining it, and I mention you there as well [2].
I'd love to hear your feedback!
[1] https://docnode.dev/docs#credits--acknowledgements [2] https://docnode.dev/blog/text-conflicts
Out of curiosity, which tradeoffs were problematic for your design?