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Reliable Sync from a syntactic (e.g. rich text) or data structure level is possible already with CRDTs, there are many excellent solutions (y.js, automerge etc.

Reliable Sync from a syntactic (e.g. rich text) or data structure level is possible already with CRDTs, there are many excellent solutions (y.js, automerge etc.). Semantic sync (for example when 2 people have modified a draft of a novel and want to sync): how to auto sync both versions so the resulting text makes sense and has no duplicates, is indeed much harder, and requires manual revisions (like git revisions), possibly with LLM suggestions.

immibis 2y ago
Text editing CRDTs fall in the category of things that are technically possible, in an incredibly useless way - just like it's possible to automatically "resolve" every Git merge conflict by randomly splatting the conflicting lines around in the file.
- baq 2y ago
  CRDTs with LLM suggested conflict resolution might just be the thing. Next best thing is keeping conflicts unresolved, but marked as such as a first-class citizen of the document content (see pijul, jj).
  - threatofrain 2y ago
    But then you don’t get convergence which is a requirement and LLMs will be just as good for Git as they will be for CRDTs.
    - baq 2y ago
      I postulate they may handle written language quite well, within reasonable bounds. Re convergence, turns out it's much more convenient to let conflict resolution be deferred.
    - yencabulator 2y ago
      You can get convergence with the same mechanism that OT uses for compaction: assign a special server role that does it.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  It's more of a UI/UX problem than a hard limitation. For uses cases that require collaboration with offline editing, the person that last merges might be given a split view to sync their changes. Again, syntactically possible, semantically harder, but it depends on your use-case plus additional constraints (eg max offline time). Maybe not a fully automatic system, but still very useful.
- archagon 2y ago
  Most collaborative text editors use CRDTs, OT, or a derivative nowadays. For the most part, the paradigm works fine: changes aren't just "randomly splatted" around the file but appear in their expected causal context. Strange things can happen when paragraphs are deleted or moved around, but this is more of a UI problem than an intrinsic limitation, and I'm not sure what alternative you're thinking of other than locking or throwing up a horrible "pick a version" dialog box.

immibis 2y ago

Text editing CRDTs fall in the category of things that are technically possible, in an incredibly useless way - just like it's possible to automatically "resolve" every Git merge conflict by randomly splatting the conflicting lines around in the file.

baq 2y ago
CRDTs with LLM suggested conflict resolution might just be the thing. Next best thing is keeping conflicts unresolved, but marked as such as a first-class citizen of the document content (see pijul, jj).
- threatofrain 2y ago
  But then you don’t get convergence which is a requirement and LLMs will be just as good for Git as they will be for CRDTs.
  - baq 2y ago
    I postulate they may handle written language quite well, within reasonable bounds. Re convergence, turns out it's much more convenient to let conflict resolution be deferred.
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    You can get convergence with the same mechanism that OT uses for compaction: assign a special server role that does it.
mentalgear 2y ago
It's more of a UI/UX problem than a hard limitation. For uses cases that require collaboration with offline editing, the person that last merges might be given a split view to sync their changes. Again, syntactically possible, semantically harder, but it depends on your use-case plus additional constraints (eg max offline time). Maybe not a fully automatic system, but still very useful.
archagon 2y ago
Most collaborative text editors use CRDTs, OT, or a derivative nowadays. For the most part, the paradigm works fine: changes aren't just "randomly splatted" around the file but appear in their expected causal context. Strange things can happen when paragraphs are deleted or moved around, but this is more of a UI problem than an intrinsic limitation, and I'm not sure what alternative you're thinking of other than locking or throwing up a horrible "pick a version" dialog box.