Alice has a file. Bob has a copy. They both edit it, and want the edits to be synchronized (by some sort of smart merge). That's the over-engineered syncing sol

Alice has a file. Bob has a copy. They both edit it, and want the edits to be synchronized (by some sort of smart merge). That's the over-engineered syncing solutions Joel is talking about. Not just rsync. Sorry about the semantics ... I should have been clearer.