alt Hacker NewsBut this problem isn't going to be solved by every app making its own sync system. Even if there is a magic library you can adopt that does pretty good, then everyone having their own completely independent hosting solution and sync schedule.
If files are insufficient, what data-structure would make modular sync possible for multiple applications in an OS?
And I’m not suggesting one doesn’t exist, I’m challenging to present a comprehensive solution, that probably involved operating systems.
> I want my wife and I to be able to make separate edits on our phones when we're in a dead zone.
Files do this.
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Files come with certain restrictions, which don't matter for certain types of applications. But for others they do.
I think it boils down to provenance and concurrency. If we edit the same line a file, that's ba merge conflict when it really should be simple and something I shouldn't have to bother with. And when we do do the same line edit, I'd love to have provenance on that data.
Granted, those aren't local first thing exactly, but I think there will be apps that want all of that.
I agree that files solve some rudimentary cases, but they do not even allow simple conflict resolution. Eg. compressed files, including container formats like OpenOffice (text files in a ZIP archive IIRC), might be simple to apply changes from two sides if they are in distant parts, but syncing full files simply barfs.
Note that this does not even need two users: I hit this problem with a desktop and laptop and self-hosted NextCloud myself.
In general, a filesystem that actually stored both raw data (to fail-over to), but also a per-format event log, and maybe even app specific events (imagine a PNG changes, we could have any change recorded as raw bytes, generic bitmap image operation like "modify pixels at x,y to ..." and app-specific log like "gimp: apply sharpen filter on polygon area ...").
This would allow the other side to attempt to do the smartest sync it has (if it has a compatible version of gimp, it could decide to apply the filter, otherwise fall back to raw pixel changes if no conflicts, and then fall back to full file contents reconciliation).
Just like MIME handlers get registered, if file systems provided such change logs, some could have very advanced sync systems with this support from "filesystems".