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Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

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Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#61

Post by jodrellblank »

nihilocrat wrote: post #31

Hey, where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, here: http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/

Gobby. Bubbling over with 1990's user friendliness:

"There is a native Win32 build of sobby at [link]. There are no special Windows-specific features, but it runs. You will need glibmm, libxml++ (from the gtkmm installer), obby and net6 DLLs (from the Gobby installer or the gobby-win32 repos). There has been no extensive testing on the Win32 platform, so consider this as experimental." - March 2007, (latest)

Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#62

Post by ashu »

pg wrote: post #16
smoody wrote: post #2

"Changes are made in absolute real time, something even Google hasn’t been able to do (Google docs update every fifteen seconds)." To imply that Google 'hasn't been able to do it' is kind of silly. It's more likely that they chose not to do it and/or their scaling requirements made it impractical.

It's not Google's scaling requirements that limit their simultaneity (or, obviously, a deliberate choice). Google Docs uses a different architecture, where a master copy of the document is kept on the server and broadcast every n seconds to all the clients. This is easier to implement, but can't be made fast enough to feel realtime. Etherpad uses a different approach: they ship all the edits to all the users as soon…

Paxos-style distributed consensus?

Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#63

Post by mdolon »

volida wrote: post #53
pg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was one of the applications the Appjets had in mind. Aaron told me that when he worked at Google one of the main reasons they used to fly candidates in was just to watch them write code. Part of that step could now happen before the flight. Air Etherpad. Official Airline of the Recession.

except that you can't know if the person who is typing is the real one

...or by himself, or using google, or a serial killer in his underpants, etc.

Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#64

Post by pg »

volida wrote: post #53
pg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was one of the applications the Appjets had in mind. Aaron told me that when he worked at Google one of the main reasons they used to fly candidates in was just to watch them write code. Part of that step could now happen before the flight. Air Etherpad. Official Airline of the Recession.

except that you can't know if the person who is typing is the real one

That's why I said part of that step could happen before the flight. You would also want to have some tests in person for the people who made it past the remote test. They probably wouldn't be needed that much, though, because I don't think most applicants would go so far as to have someone else type their answers if they were doing it live on the phone with someone from the hiring co.

Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#65

Post by celoyd »

pg wrote: post #16
smoody wrote: post #2

"Changes are made in absolute real time, something even Google hasn’t been able to do (Google docs update every fifteen seconds)." To imply that Google 'hasn't been able to do it' is kind of silly. It's more likely that they chose not to do it and/or their scaling requirements made it impractical.

It's not Google's scaling requirements that limit their simultaneity (or, obviously, a deliberate choice). Google Docs uses a different architecture, where a master copy of the document is kept on the server and broadcast every n seconds to all the clients. This is easier to implement, but can't be made fast enough to feel realtime. Etherpad uses a different approach: they ship all the edits to all the users as soon…

A master model is not necessarily slower. Everything goes through the server either way, and it comes down to how much data you have to transmit and how much the sender, server, and receiver have to process it.

At http://draftastic.com/ we keep a master but only broadcast changed portions -- a compromise between re-sending the whole document and handling a hail of tiny diffs. This uses automatic locking, which we thought was reasonable given that people rarely want to type directly on top of each other, but it means a much simpler implementation of undo and so on. Basically, we've made a heartbeat-based system with heartbeats so cheap that they can be fast, and we never need a merge algorithm.

In any case, I'll be watching the just-raw-edits approach with interest. Best of luck to Etherpad -- there's plenty of room in the market.

Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#66

Post by blasdel »

axod wrote: post #18
abacad wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connection: Keep-Alive

Yes, you can specify keep-alive (Although some browsers refuse to do it in an XHR - Opera for one). However, you still send the full glut of HTTP headers every single request.

You can null out the default headers on a XHR so they don't get sent.

Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#67

Post by ErrantX »

tlrobinson wrote: post #56
ErrantX wrote: post #23

neat but hardly killer. Yes they have the handiness of true realtime updates (and I am not denying that isn't a huge feature) but that's hardly a unique feature (or wont be for long). But then the rest of the UI / feature set is far too bland :( at least get some code highlighting and stuff in there. Also in our short test earlier it didnt handle mass deletions & editing very well (if I deleted a block of text as som…

They do have syntax highlighting for JavaScript. One thing I've often wished for was a standard syntax for specifying syntax highlighting modes. Right now basically every text editor has a different way of doing it, so you have to write dozens of modes when you create a new language or editor.

I know what you mean :D that would be rather cool

Thinking about it (going back slightly) there are not many situations where I see anyone actually coding with others in REAL time. Perhaps on hackathons (actually it would be ace for them) or suchlike - but for real work I doubt it would work. So the big selling point is gone: and there is nothing else to support it as a useful app (when Google docs has 100x the features).

That said I hope that will change in the future because it is rather nifty :D

Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#68

Post by Retric »

pg wrote: post #16
smoody wrote: post #2

"Changes are made in absolute real time, something even Google hasn’t been able to do (Google docs update every fifteen seconds)." To imply that Google 'hasn't been able to do it' is kind of silly. It's more likely that they chose not to do it and/or their scaling requirements made it impractical.

It's not Google's scaling requirements that limit their simultaneity (or, obviously, a deliberate choice). Google Docs uses a different architecture, where a master copy of the document is kept on the server and broadcast every n seconds to all the clients. This is easier to implement, but can't be made fast enough to feel realtime. Etherpad uses a different approach: they ship all the edits to all the users as soon…

Look at MMO's or FPS games to see how fast they can make that model.

Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#69

Post by humanlever »

My first thought while playing with it during class was that it'd make a great replacement for Basecamp's crappy Writeboard feature.

I was also thinking that instead of unnamed, you could build a list of celebrity names that are used until the user changes it (which should be pretty quick if you wind up with something like Danny Glover or Hans Blix). If not, at least you'd have a way to distinguish between people.

Re: Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done (By AppJet)

#70

Post by misuba »

axod wrote: post #44
there wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

create a mashup with this and github to pull in code from a github url and edit it

Stir in half a pint of Mibbit IRC widget, and you could have quite a productive environment.

There's already a Chat pane in the sidebar...
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