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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)

#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.

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

#4
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.

Agreed. Etherpad is sending a new POST request pretty much every keypress. Considering the HTTP headers and cookies, that's around 500-1k of data per letter typed. At google docs volume that would be a lot.

(Total data sent when I press 'j' was 1073 bytes of HTTP headers, and 123 bytes of program data).

The other reason may be that whilst it looks really cool to see each other typing, is it really needed?

Does look quite slick though :)

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

#5
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.

What's the difference between "something even Google hasn’t been able to do" and "their scaling requirements made it impractical"? When you get past the semantics, it's essentially the same thing. Either way, they're not doing it.

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

#6
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.

You're forgetting Google didn't develop Google Docs in-house they purchased Writely back in 2006 and that's the codebase Google Docs is built on. Depending on how it was built originally the change might require a massive rewrite...

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

#7
post #4
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.

Agreed. Etherpad is sending a new POST request pretty much every keypress. Considering the HTTP headers and cookies, that's around 500-1k of data per letter typed. At google docs volume that would be a lot. (Total data sent when I press 'j' was 1073 bytes of HTTP headers, and 123 bytes of program data). The other reason may be that whilst it looks really cool to see each other typing, is it really needed? Does look q…

I think they're using comet for the requests so while the activity may be high when people are typing, during breaks it should be very low as opposed to ajax polling.

I do think that real-time is really needed for many applications. The few times I've tried collaborating on a google doc, I've given up because the lag introduced the possibility of overwriting each others edits. That and just a general annoyance with saying "Do you see it yet?" over and over.

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

#8
post #4
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.

Agreed. Etherpad is sending a new POST request pretty much every keypress. Considering the HTTP headers and cookies, that's around 500-1k of data per letter typed. At google docs volume that would be a lot. (Total data sent when I press 'j' was 1073 bytes of HTTP headers, and 123 bytes of program data). The other reason may be that whilst it looks really cool to see each other typing, is it really needed? Does look q…

Well that's a stupid way to handle it... keep the socket open... read about Comet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_(programming)

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

#9
post #3

What would make this application killer for me is if was embeddable in other applications as a widget (think rich-text editor on steroids). This, plus a git-like backend for revision history, would be just absolutely amazing.

Agreed. Imagine this sort of collaboration in the Heroku editor... Or online collaborative versions of Textmate, emcacs, vim, etc.

Be nice if they offered textile and markdown rendering.

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

#10
post #6
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.

You're forgetting Google didn't develop Google Docs in-house they purchased Writely back in 2006 and that's the codebase Google Docs is built on. Depending on how it was built originally the change might require a massive rewrite...

Was Google Spreadsheets built on top of the Writely codebase? Because their Spreadsheet app is WAY better than their Document app.
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