3 ms·

Yes, every diff has a timestamp. The clocks aren't synced across devices, but the assumption is that they are "close enough" such that a user isn't going to do

by allenu 8y ago

Yes, every diff has a timestamp. The clocks aren't synced across devices, but the assumption is that they are "close enough" such that a user isn't going to do something like mark a task as done on device A and within the clock delta jump to device B and mark it as "not done". Conflict resolution falls apart if there are multiple users on multiple devices, but my assumption with my solution is that it's only to be used by a single user across multiple devices.

bradknowles 8y ago
How accurate is your timesync? Do you use NTP across the board, and if so, how often do you check with your upstream clock servers to see if you might need to make some minor adjustments? What happens if two different devices try to make updates within the window of your timesync error? Who wins then? Because they both think that they're the latest and therefore their write should win.
- allenu 8y ago
  I don't do anything like that. I just rely on the device's clock. Again, for my simple needs (to-do list), it works fine. It could be a problem if you have a device with the wrong time, but even then it would require a single user to be making lots of changes on the same property of the same object within a very small window of time, which for a to-do app is very, very unlikely. I didn't want to solve problems I didn't have.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Sounds like you created a simple, pragmatic solution for your use case. Which is exactly what you should do. But the method probably can't be applied to mission critical systems without changes.
  - allenu 8y ago
    My solution was designed for a very narrow use case where there is one user and multiple devices. The main reason I designed it because I did not want to stand up a cloud service for storing user info. I wanted to offload that responsibility to a file sharing system like Dropbox or OneDrive. It's not meant for anything beyond a very simple use case.
    - chrisweekly 8y ago
      ... which is what makes it appropriate! Pragmatism FTW.

by allenu 8y ago

bradknowles 8y ago

How accurate is your timesync? Do you use NTP across the board, and if so, how often do you check with your upstream clock servers to see if you might need to make some minor adjustments? What happens if two different devices try to make updates within the window of your timesync error? Who wins then? Because they both think that they're the latest and therefore their write should win.

allenu 8y ago
I don't do anything like that. I just rely on the device's clock. Again, for my simple needs (to-do list), it works fine. It could be a problem if you have a device with the wrong time, but even then it would require a single user to be making lots of changes on the same property of the same object within a very small window of time, which for a to-do app is very, very unlikely. I didn't want to solve problems I didn't have.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Sounds like you created a simple, pragmatic solution for your use case. Which is exactly what you should do. But the method probably can't be applied to mission critical systems without changes.
- allenu 8y ago
  My solution was designed for a very narrow use case where there is one user and multiple devices. The main reason I designed it because I did not want to stand up a cloud service for storing user info. I wanted to offload that responsibility to a file sharing system like Dropbox or OneDrive. It's not meant for anything beyond a very simple use case.
  - chrisweekly 8y ago
    ... which is what makes it appropriate! Pragmatism FTW.