[IPython-dev] IPEP 3: Multiuser support in the notebook

[Fernando Perez]

On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Jason Grout <jason-sage at creativetrax.com> wrote:
> Are you saying that the two of us will be interacting with one running
> kernel?  Or are you saying that we both have different kernels and the
> outputs are somehow pushed back and forth between our representations?
> The former seems more likely, but I was just checking.  In Sage we have
> the latter (IIRC), and sometimes it gets really confusing.

The former.  We envision collaboration similar to Gdocs, running
against the same kernel, but with cell-level granularity for
concurrent typing instead of character-level.  When a user starts
typing in a cell, the others would see it shaded with that user's
name, effectively locking cells, so that they don't trample on each
other.

Creating a framework for synchronizing at the cell level is easier and
less finicky than getting something like google docs that syncs
character-by-character.  And I also don't quite like the feel of
complete 'all hands at the same time' editing gdocs provides, so
hopefully this will be a good experience.  We'll have to see.

Cheers,

f