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by kba 3054 days ago
My experience is with OT, so I can't speak for CRDT, but I can imagine it's similar.

With OT, you send a na[1] (number add) operation, so this would work fine. Indeed, if you treat the number as a string, then you have a problem.

[1]: https://github.com/ottypes/json0#summary-of-operations
1 comments
taeric 3054 days ago
This doesn't compose with all operations. One users adds and another user multiplies, for example. That is to say, not all operations are associative.

I bet you can run really far with this general idea. But there is no panacea.

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kba 3054 days ago
You're absolutely right, but I'd also never suggest a collaborative system for anything critical. As I've said earlier in this thread: If you're in a Google Docs document with a buddy and you write "A" and he writes "B" at the same time, you also don't know whether that'll show up as "AB" or "BA". In practice, this isn't an issue.
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taeric 3054 days ago
To underscore our point, concatenation on strings is not associative, either.

To that end, the basics of math in associative, cumulative, distributive, etc., go together to create an algebra of what you can automate rather easily. I think most of us stopped thinking in terms of those laws years ago. To the point that it is probably odd to folks that stayed close to them.

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gmfawcett 3054 days ago
> To underscore our point, concatenation on strings is not associative, either.

I think you mean commutative. It certainly is associative.

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taeric 3054 days ago
Ha! Yes. I meant to draw attention to all of the fundamental laws people are used to. Messed up in some edit.

Thanks!

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