CRDTs have been on HN a lot recently. I'm working on a database that deals in events rather than raw data. Application developers specify event handlers in JavaScript. The database layer then takes the event handlers and distributes them to the clients. Clients receive the raw stream of events and reconcile the final data state independently. The key aspect is all the event handlers are reversible. This allows clients to insert locally generated events immediately. If any remote events are received out-of-order, the client can undo events, insert the new events, and reapply everything on top of the new state.
I'm curious how many people have a need for solving the real-time multi-player use case. The database I'm working on was inspired by the networking code used in fighting games (rollback netcode), but I'm always curious to learn about additional use cases.
I want most software on my computer to be transparently collaboratively editable. Like, I want to open a draft blog post on my desktop, go out, open my phone, keep editing the post, share it with susan, then get home and see her proposed changes and merge them like I would in a code editor.
And I want to be able to do that same workflow when editing video. Or when drawing. Or recording music. Or when configuring a server on AWS.
I agree. Everything should be collaborative. Feel free to reach out if you're interested in collaborating (email in my HN profile). I'm trying to get a v0 of this database out now, and building desirable use-cases is super important.