This Week on Channel 9: April 25th Episode

The Discussion

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  Elephant in the room:
  I have watched a few videos on Live Mesh. No one has talked about how collaboration will work with Live Mesh. If Odujosh and Charles are both editing a document on the mesh online how is merging handled.
  
  What if we both edit the same sentence without checking for a synch. How is the interactivity scenario for this handled.

• 

  odujosh wrote:

  Elephant in the room:
  I have watched a few videos on Live Mesh. No one has talked about how collaboration will work with Live Mesh. If Odujosh and Charles are both editing a document on the mesh online how is merging handled.
  
  What if we both edit the same sentence without checking for a synch. How is the interactivity scenario for this handled.

  
  
  I didn't think to bring this up during the show, but EricRempel asked the same question and Ori from the Live Mesh team responded here, which I'll copy/paste below.
  
  The mesh synchronization infrastructure essentially detects conflicts at the DataEntry level – so in the case of file synchronization, this happens at the file file/metadata level.  While the system is able to resolve conflicts “automatically” if needed, in general it leaves the conflict resolution logic to the application layer.  For example, using the scenario you describe below where “two users are working on something and one saves right before the other” – the mesh user experience (e.g., Live Folders) will prompt the user with information about the two conflicting files and allow the user to select how they would like to resolve the conflict.  This approach enables applications which are able to handle conflicts at different levels to apply the appropriate logic for their users.  In other scenarios where multiple users may be editing different DataEntries within the same Feed in the system – the system will automatically apply merge semantics for the changes.
  
  

   

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  Agree.  I think messenger is the canonical app for Mesh. Perfect fit.  In a macro way, Mesh is really a lot like NNTP with way it does local cache and sync between local stores - and we know NNTP scales well.  I find the idea of local Blogs really cool.  There is not "really" a server hosting the blog (however the cloud gets all posts), it is a virtualization of all the members.
  
  Another use is forever war game that has no start and no end.  Such as a WWII game based on mesh.  Users join in a region of the world war.  Users interact with local players in that battle.  Many battles will be taking place around the world.  If I leave, my player goes to sleep and battles continue.  When I wake, I see new state.  The game just keeps going and changing with battles and campaigns forever and all state is in the Mesh.

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  Great episode, guys. Really glad you finally decided to dump that old boring co-host you had.
  
  I have been using Foldershare religiously for the past few years. I love the technology and it's great to see Live Mesh building on top of this concept to introduce new devices (e.g. mobile devices) and capabilities (e.g. remote desktop). I can't wait to watch this evolve over the next few years.