codemp

This project is heavily inspired by Microsoft Live Share plugin for Visual Studio (Code). While the functionality is incredibly good, I often find issues or glitches which slow me down, and being locked to only use Visual Studio products is limiting. I decided to write my own solution, and to make it open source, so that any editor can integrate it with a plugin.

Design

Client/Server

While initially a P2P system seemed interesting, I don't think it would easily scale with many users (due to having to integrate many changes on each client). I decided to build a client/server architecture, with a central "Workspace" managed by the server application and multiple clients connecting to it. Each client will only have to care about keeping itself in sync with the server (remembering local-only changes and acknowledged changes), leaving the task of keeping track of differences to the server.

Plugins

This software will probably be distribuited as a standalone binary that editors can use to connect to a "Workspace". A dynamic library object might also be a choice. Each editor plugin must be responsible of mapping codemp functionality to actual editor capabilities, bridging codemp client to the editor itself. The client should be able to handle a session autonomously.

Text Synchronization

A non destructive way to sync changes across clients is necessary. I initially explored CRDTs, but implementation seemed complex with little extra benefits from "more traditional" approaches (Operational Transforms). This has to be investigated more.

Roadmap

Initial design choices
Simple GRPC server with tonic
Simple neovim client with RPC/msgpack
Implementing core protocol routes
Simple neovim client capable of displaying other person cursor
Implement OTs / CRTDs for sharing file deltas
More clients (VSCode? JetBrains IDEs?)
LSP functionality bridged to guests from host?
Full remote development suite by keeping the project repo on a server?

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