Differential Synchronization

What people said

mhale · 2020-09 · Recommendation

I'm working on a project with some offline data synchronization needs, but haven't started implementation yet. I've been following CRDTs with interest. I also saw many of the same downsides mentioned in the OP, e.g. bloat (which apparently are being addressed remarkably well). Beyond OT, another approach I've run across that looks very promising is Differential Synchronization[1] by Neil Fraser. While it also relies on a centralized server, it allows for servers to be chained in such a way that seems to address many of the downsides of OT. I wonder why I rarely ever see Differential Synchronization mentioned here on HN? Is it due to lack of awareness or because of use-case fit issues or some fatal flaw I haven't seen? Or something else? [1] [VIDEO]

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dahjelle · 2014-06 · Recommendation

I've not tried it, but you might also be interested in an approach called differential synchronization[1]. Basically, it's just a specific way of passing diffs around to guarantee convergence, though (as far as I can tell) it doesn't guarantee much else (as in do you lose data if a patch can't be applied?). The really nice bits, though, are that it is a simple algorithm and that it can be applied to anything that you have diff/patch algorithms for. [1] [VIDEO]

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raganwald · 2012-09 · Recommendation

One real-world use case is differential synchronization. Here's a Google Tech Talk on the subject: [VIDEO] This is for real-time collaborative editing or replication of structured data (unlike Operational Transformation, which is optimized for text). Sending patches back and forth is at the core of the protocol.

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