5 ms·

Ideally that would be handled on the FS layer and completely transparent to all apps. Things would get synchronized once connection is restored.

gw99 4y ago
That would have been nice. Cached 9P perhaps. Instead we got OneDrive, Dropbox and iCloud. Ugh.
rand49an 4y ago
But then you have to deal with conflicts in a sensible way that won't lose users files and make it simple enough for people to choose which files to synchronise.
Multicomp 4y ago
I mean, isn't that a potential usecase for Syncthing? If I go offline on one of my devices, my files are still locally on the system. When it comes back online, it re-syncs the other devices to use my latest files.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  This is a very simple use case when you are working alone. Think about a team of people and hundreds of potentially conflicting changes to review manually.* Sometimes a tangible divide between online and offline is extremely useful. *) Unless you believe this can be resolved by software - I'm afraid we're very far from that point yet.
viraptor 4y ago
You can't just synchronise things without knowing the file formats. You can't do a seamless distributed FS which allows offline changes. Or more precisely, you can, but by choosing the most fresh file and people have lost work that way. There's a few "dropbox ate my files" stories out there.
- jeffreygoesto 4y ago
  I assume that "decent" in the comment meant to address that?
  - viraptor 4y ago
    It would have to be magical not just decent. This is not solvable on the level of the file system. You can't add a blue line to an image on one system and a red line on another system and expect the filesystem to somehow figure out how to handle that on its own. The best you can count on is the conflict being flagged with both versions exposed.
- Huh1337 4y ago
  CRDTs? Perhaps the idea of plain text/binary files is a little outdated too.
  - viraptor 4y ago
    CRDT is extremely format-specific. File systems don't operate at that level. And that's before we even decide if the merged edits is what you actually want.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  That is usually handled by exposing a "driver" API where the relevant programs can install merging components. And yes, default into choosing some one, with an extended interface for displaying and managing conflicts.

gw99 4y ago

That would have been nice. Cached 9P perhaps. Instead we got OneDrive, Dropbox and iCloud. Ugh.

rand49an 4y ago

But then you have to deal with conflicts in a sensible way that won't lose users files and make it simple enough for people to choose which files to synchronise.

Multicomp 4y ago

I mean, isn't that a potential usecase for Syncthing? If I go offline on one of my devices, my files are still locally on the system. When it comes back online, it re-syncs the other devices to use my latest files.

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
This is a very simple use case when you are working alone. Think about a team of people and hundreds of potentially conflicting changes to review manually.* Sometimes a tangible divide between online and offline is extremely useful. *) Unless you believe this can be resolved by software - I'm afraid we're very far from that point yet.

viraptor 4y ago

You can't just synchronise things without knowing the file formats. You can't do a seamless distributed FS which allows offline changes. Or more precisely, you can, but by choosing the most fresh file and people have lost work that way. There's a few "dropbox ate my files" stories out there.

jeffreygoesto 4y ago
I assume that "decent" in the comment meant to address that?
- viraptor 4y ago
  It would have to be magical not just decent. This is not solvable on the level of the file system. You can't add a blue line to an image on one system and a red line on another system and expect the filesystem to somehow figure out how to handle that on its own. The best you can count on is the conflict being flagged with both versions exposed.
Huh1337 4y ago
CRDTs? Perhaps the idea of plain text/binary files is a little outdated too.
- viraptor 4y ago
  CRDT is extremely format-specific. File systems don't operate at that level. And that's before we even decide if the merged edits is what you actually want.
marcosdumay 4y ago
That is usually handled by exposing a "driver" API where the relevant programs can install merging components. And yes, default into choosing some one, with an extended interface for displaying and managing conflicts.