Book
Local-First Software
The seven ideals this whole architecture is chasing.
- Status
- read
- Author
- Kleppmann, Wiggins, van Hardenberg, McGranaghan
- Rating
Local-First Software
Seven ideals for software that keeps working when the network does not. Most of this site is an attempt to hold all seven at once rather than trade six away for the one that ships fastest.
The one that costs the most
"The network is optional." Every page you are reading is a CRDT document that syncs when it can and edits when it cannot — so the offline page in Docs is not a feature bolted on at the end, it is what falls out of choosing a CRDT before choosing a database.
The ideal it is easiest to fake is the last one: you own your data. A site that renders your documents but keeps them somewhere you cannot reach has not honoured it. That is why the tree is the site, and why every page here has a URL you can read without this app running.