CRDTs and the BEAM -Kevin Barrett and Sloane Perrault| Code BEAM America 2025

[CodeSync]

CRDTs and the BEAM -Kevin Barrett and Sloane Perrault| Code BEAM America 2025

CRDTs and the BEAM -Kevin Barrett and Sloane Perrault| Code BEAM America 2025

This talk was recorded at Code BEAM America in March 2025. If you’re curious about our upcoming event, check https://codebebeamamerica.com

Conflict-free Replicated Datatypes (CRDTs) allow for distributed, p2p-style workflows where users generate data without conflicts. At screen.garden we wrap Yjs, a CRDT, inside a NIF to push business logic down into clients. This pairs surprisingly well with the BEAM, as we can manage those CRDTs inside stateful processes to turn a fundamentally imperative data structure into a functional one. Adding Phoenix for pubsub and LiveView, we use this architecture to create screen.garden, a collaboration and sync platform for Obsidian. All of this allows for fine-grained sync between a server and many devices, without conflicts and without fear of downtime.

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