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Show HN: A note-taking web app that won't ever betray you

noteto.me

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Re: Show HN: A note-taking web app that won't ever betray you

#51
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible and there has been research in this area, see http://archagon.net/blog/2018/03/24/data-laced-with-history/ for details about conflict resolution. The main problem is garbage collection - to guarantee that you can sync across all devices for all time, your data structure must be append-only, so your document can only grow. A long living document will eventually grow very very large. You could let the use…

Just use a CRDT

That's what I'm suggesting, but I'm pointing out the fact that CRDTs are generally append only data structures and it's possible to run into space issues with them eventually for some users.

Re: Show HN: A note-taking web app that won't ever betray you

#53
I like the concept of decoupling storage from the editor app. I wish more SAAS providers recognized this as an important product feature. It would allow deployment of hosted services in much wider range of scenarios, where privacy and data ownership is a big concern.

Re: Show HN: A note-taking web app that won't ever betray you

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admire that. Don't let any counter argument ever stop you. Parallel experiments are critical for success. With that said, can't we say that the federated experiment has already played out? Particularly, in email? What new innovation or changes do you think will make the story play out differently this time around, versus outright P2P/decentralization? Thanks!

(Oh man, sorry, this ended up being an essay!) Take, for instance, statically-hosted HTTP: if I'm, say, hosting at AWS and I want to switch to Netlify, it's trivial - I just change the place I upload my files to and switch the DNS. To me that's a complete success in decentralization - there's no hassle, no compatibility problems, no one other than me even knows that I've made the change. So I don't see it as federate…

Hey, great stuff here.

Well stated, kindly argued.

I really look forward to what you build now, 6months, 2 years+ from now. :)

Re: Show HN: A note-taking web app that won't ever betray you

#55

This is my first time reading about Edsu, it seems very similar to the Solid Platform in one important aspect: it keeps data in the control of the user, separate from applications. I like how low-level and simplified the protocol is, being limited to only 9 types of messages. Compared to Solid which carries baggage from RDF, this seems far easier for third parties to implement. The note-taking app is really under-sel…

Thanks! One of the goals of Edsu is that it's simple enough that you can "telnet" in and just talk directly to the server like you can with HTTP or SMTP. It can seem like a trivial feature, but I've found that being able to speak a subset of a protocol from any language after just an hour or two of duct-tape hacking ends up being a big unsung feature. And itgoon has it right - this was the most useful thing I could t…

Edsu seems to have some similarities to https://remotestorage.io . Can someone summarize the main differences?

Re: Show HN: A note-taking web app that won't ever betray you

#58
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! One of the goals of Edsu is that it's simple enough that you can "telnet" in and just talk directly to the server like you can with HTTP or SMTP. It can seem like a trivial feature, but I've found that being able to speak a subset of a protocol from any language after just an hour or two of duct-tape hacking ends up being a big unsung feature. And itgoon has it right - this was the most useful thing I could t…

Edsu seems to have some similarities to https://remotestorage.io . Can someone summarize the main differences?

This is the first I've heard of Edsu as well, but when I checked out NoteToMe, the first thing I noted is that you should create an account first. It's probably not inherent to the protocol, but the nice thing about RemoteStorage is that the default library already starts with localStorage first, and allows you to only sync that data to an account later.

Compare https://litewrite.net, a RemoteStorage app presumably similar to NoteToMe. You can start writing immediately, and sign in with a RemoteStorage account only if you want that data to be available elsewhere as well.

Re: Show HN: A note-taking web app that won't ever betray you

#59
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm just hearing about this Edsu project and am not in any position to vouch for it re: future betrayal, I think the specific concern you raised is solved by Edsu by using local storage rather than a centralized repository. A few clicks in, the first line of https://edclave.com/ is: "Edsu makes life better for both developers and users of Online Open Source Software (OOSS). Instead of the developer having to ho…

Local storage feels really quite volatile. It lives on a local disk inside your browser. May as well just use notepad and a file.

Notepad++ and Dropbox work quite well together.
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