Zero is a ✨generalized✨ sync engine that should work for a wide variety of apps, and is enabled by IVM. In traditional dbs, you do a single query and get a single result. If data changes, you re-run the query. Even in "realtime" databases, what's usually happening is re-running queries. - ThreadSky

aaronboodman.com • 9 days ago

Zero is a ✨generalized✨ sync engine that should work for a wide variety of apps, and is enabled by IVM.

In traditional dbs, you do a single query and get a single result. If data changes, you re-run the query. Even in "realtime" databases, what's usually happening is re-running queries.

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aaronboodman.com•9 days ago

For a sync engine, we really need IVM because of permissions. We want to sync MB of data to the client, but only what the user has access to. These permissions naturally take the form a set of complex queries.

What we really want is to sync the result of these big queries continually to client.

aaronboodman.com•9 days ago

But doing this in a classic database would be insanely expensive. It would basically mean re-running multi-MB complex joins over and over, anytime ~any row changes.

Worse, since every user has their own permissions, when a single row changes ALL users' queries must be recalculated.

aaronboodman.com•9 days ago

IVM has been an area of active development in backend databases, most recently by projects like https://www.feldera.com/ and https://github.com/mit-pdos/noria.

We took these same ideas and applied them to sync.

aaronboodman.com•9 days ago

The end result is a really fun way to build web apps.

You do a query direct from the client. Zero answers the query and keeps it up to date efficiently.

But better, if you do another query that overlaps with the first, Zero reuses the already synced data to answer the new query ✨instantly✨.

aaronboodman.com•9 days ago

And, because the data is local, you can *mutate* it. Zero provides a synchronous local write API. Write directly to the client-side data and the UI updates *instantly*. Changes are synced to the server in the background. Conflicts are resolved with https://www.gabrielgambetta.com/client-side-prediction-server-reconciliation.html.

aaronboodman.com•9 days ago

Try it out yourself:

https://bugs.rocicorp.dev/

We made our own Linear-style bug tracker with Zero as a dogfood, and have used it as our actual bug tracker for months.

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