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by vanderZwan 2095 days ago
I honestly think a good skill to have as a programmer is to know when something is a complex, niche problem with inherently "fragile" implementations (as in, it is really easy to make mistakes) that is therefore best solved by a few domain experts working on an open source library, and just use that library.

Based on everything I've seen about them, OT/CRDTs sound like they are that.
2 comments
josephg 2095 days ago
(Author here) I agree with that conclusion. I think they're really fun to implement and explore. I've been working in the area for a decade. And I've implemented over a dozen variants of OT systems by now. And despite all that I still consistently make mistakes that are only found with a fuzzer. Even thorough unit testing is never quite enough.

I recommend implementing them for the fun of it. I love it. But don't put anything you write into production until you can leave a randomized test suite running overnight without errors.

Example:

Random op generator: https://github.com/ottypes/text-unicode/blob/master/test/gen...

Which powers this fuzzer: https://github.com/ottypes/fuzzer/blob/master/lib/index.js

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UK-Al05 2095 days ago
This guy just asked how to get into them because he is interested in them.

You just replied don't. Have you considered he wants to this regardless of not applying them purely commercially and wants to perform research, or in a novel industrial capacity?

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vanderZwan 2094 days ago
I wasn't telling them not to learn this, or at least that wasn't the intent. Learning for the sake of learning should never be discouraged, and I apologize if I came across that way! I was responding to this last sentence:

> It's just... sad to know enough that I produce less than optimal work but don't know enough to confidently prevent it from happening over and over and over again.

Basically, the notion that not knowing how to implement this means the resulting product is sub-optimal. My counter-argument is that delegating work that needs expert domain knowledge and skills to the experts and use the fruits of their labor will result in a better product.

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