Speaker
Description
Collaborative data analysis presents a fundamental concurrency problem: when multiple users modify the same data simultaneously, how should conflicts be resolved? Traditional approaches rely on locking or central arbitration, but conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs) offer a principled alternative. A CRDT is a data structure whose concurrent operations are guaranteed to converge to the same state, regardless of the order in which they are applied. This mathematical property — strong eventual consistency — eliminates the need for conflict resolution logic entirely.
We introduce CRDTs to the R ecosystem through automerge, an open-source package developed at Posit that natively bridges R's data model with the Automerge Rust CRDT engine. Collaborative documents — maps, lists, and text — appear as familiar R objects, but every edit is tracked as an individual operation under the hood. When documents are modified concurrently, changes merge automatically.
Beyond real-time document editing, CRDTs open up new possibilities for the R ecosystem: shared annotation of datasets across a research team, collaborative model specification, or any workflow where multiple analysts need to work on the same objects without coordination overhead. We make this concrete with a live demonstration: audience members will open a Shiny application on their own devices and edit shared state together, watching changes from every participant merge seamlessly in real time.
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Claude code to polish abstract wording.
Additional Material or Paper
Package repository: https://github.com/posit-dev/automerge-r
This is novel work, not previously presented.
| Keywords: Please list up to 5 keywords to help us find the right session for your contribution. | CRDTs, collaboration, concurrency, Shiny, Automerge |
|---|---|
| Virtual Option | This submission is for onsite presentation only |
| Video Recording | Video sharing is fine |
| The author(s) agree(s) to take responsibility and be accountable for the contents of the submission and is/are authorized to present it. | Confirm |