
Build collaborative apps with Google Drive Realtime API - davidjgraph
http://googledevelopers.blogspot.com/2013/03/build-collaborative-apps-with-google.html
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habosa
Wow this is awesome. My long-planned side project for the summer was to build
Operational Transform as an API, but it seems Google has beat me to the punch.
I'm glad to see it's them doing it though, as they know OT better than anyone
else in the world and I won't have to entertain the idea that I could have
done it better.

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apricot13
So basically, they realised how handy google waves collaborative features were
and now their bringing them back!

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snewman
This is very likely derived from Google Docs, not Wave. The spreadsheet app
has been based on this approach (immediate synchronization via operation
transforms) since way back, and the document and presentation apps were
rewritten to the same approach a few years ago. It sounds like they're now
simply opening up that backend for third parties... which is pretty cool,
actually.

(Background: I worked on Writely, the original Docs word processor. I wasn't
involved in the work described here, but saw some of it happening. It's nice
stuff.)

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rayk
For anyone looking for an open source alternative to this:
<http://sharejs.org/>

Similar to the Realtime API but without Google or the social integrations.

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eik3_de
Wait, they host their examples on GitHub? I thought Googlers were supposed to
dogfood Google Code?

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camus
well , maybe they are going to drop google code soon , you know it is not
"money making" enough...

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goronbjorn
Is this basically what firebase.com does?

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indubitably
I trust Google like I trust a viper in bed.

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andyl
Google for realtime? How long before they cancel it? No way I'd rely on Google
for realtime when there's meteor/node/faye/etc/etc.

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pekk
I'm under the impression that Google Drive is a money-making enterprise.
Reader was not. In light of that, my question wouldn't be whether this will be
canceled, but would be how much you will pay for depending on access to this
API when they decide to rationalize the rates.

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onemorepassword
Given how little effort Google puts into updating, bugfixing or providing any
kind of support to those _paying_ for Drive, I seriously doubt this is a
money-making enterprise.

Drive hasn't really evolved since it was launched almost a year ago when
everyone suspected it may be Google's long awaited DropBox-killer.

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jamesaguilar
What are some evolutions you'd like to see? It seems basically feature
compatible with dropbox, plus the added benefit of being able to edit
documents in-place on the web. The only think that I want and it does not have
is a fuse client for linux.

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adamors
> being able to edit documents in-place on the web

Last time I checked only a handful of file types were editable in Drive. I can
edit source files in Dropbox but Drive simply downloads them.

Drive's file manager is also very limiting while Dropbox's feels much more
like a desktop experience. I can archive, unarchive, copy, paste etc. with
ease.

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jamesaguilar
Source files are now editable using the app from the blog post mentioned in
the story we are discussing.

