On Thu, Jan 02, 2014 at 10:13:50AM -0500, Summers Pittman wrote:

On 12/20/2013 06:34 AM, Erik Jan de Wit wrote:

So we already agreed that CouchDB has some nice features, but why
wouldn’t we just use pouchdb for javascript and touchdb? I’ve just
tested the javascript and it syncs with the server perfectly, even
if there are some things missing we could add them because these
projects are open source.

Because wrapping CouchDB and friends to AeroGear with no other reason 
than to create a org.jboss.sync name space is dumb.

can't +9001 enough

Also the how of sync is still a bit far off. I'm still interested in the 
"what" of sync. What use cases are we supporting, what features are we 
supporting, what are our goals, what does a working finished sync impl 
look like, etc.

drafted here: https://gist.github.com/qmx/8278287

# aerogear-sync

While I was reviewing Summers' code and ideas, I realized that I really wanted
everything he did, but as a second step after we nail down the basics.

## basics?

Since we've been catering the enterprise market, this essentially means we need
to get the __boring__ stuff right first, then move over to the __shiny__ stuff,
like realtime data sync, update policies & friends.
### data model

For starters, I think that the most important thing that needs to be agreed
upon is the data model and the atomic operations around it. As previous
discussed, I really like CouchDB's datamodel -- and hate erlang ;)

`{_id:<guid>, content:<arbitrary json>, rev:<last revision>}`

#### JS

Well, it's JSON, it _Just Works_&trade; 

#### Java

I didn't want to pick on Java, but since its fame forces me to it. First stab
(a courtesy of our friend Dan Bevenius):

    public interface Document {
        public String id;
        public String content;
        public String rev;
    }

We naturally want to kick this a notch, and use objects instead of plain strings:

    public interface Document<T, ID> {
    	public ID id;
    	public T content;
    	public String rev;
    }

In this case, we can use the convention requiring that `T` is any **object
serializable to  JSON**. `ID` is a convenience shorthand since it's a
**GUID/UUID**. I think this key isn't necessarily a natural key (a surrogate
key instead).

#### Objective-C

<volunteers needed> ;)

### API levels

As soon as we have a rough data-model defined, we can start dabbling around
different API levels to be served:

(parts **I think** are potentially deliverable for a 1.0)

- level 0: explodes when there's a conflict
- level 1: semi-automatic conflict resolution via something like google's diff-match-patch
- level 2: business rules determine who wins a conflicting update (supervisor
wins over normal user)

(parts **I think** are potentially deliverable for a 2.0)

- level 3: real-time updates via diff-match-patch
- level 4: real-time updates via OT/EC

All those proposed API operations should be serializable, meaning I can
potentially keep doing changes offline then just replying them to the server
when online.

### transport

Since we know about the future-looking ideas on v2.0, it would be really nice
for us to specify a very simple/dumb JSON-based protocol for those change
messages. Something that could accomodate both the full document updates and
the OT/EC incremental bits too. I have no ideas on this, tbh.  

## boring usecases

### scenario 1

Building inspector system - we have mobile apps that store relevant info and
are bound to be accessed on places where we won't have any kind of connection,
or very poor signal.

You can have several inspectors screening the same building simultaneously.

Let's say we have Agnes and Joe are doing the fire extinguisher inspection in a
new hospital building. Technically each fire extinguisher has its own
identifier and can be an independent document. In this case we would have no
conflict happening.

Now they start finding expired fire extinguishers and start to add them to the
report. This report could potentially have two divergent lists of fire
extinguishers to be replenished/revalidated, as the building's compliance
status.

### scenario 2

Census system - we have mobile apps focused on offline data collection. We have
the previous year's info that needs to be updated on the server. The
interviewee needs to take a call, then asks the interviewer to come back later.
This results in two sets of changes for the same document, stacked together,
which should work flawlessly.

Any other ideas/comments?

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