The Mac OSX platform has a lot to gain from the creativity it keeps requesting from its users. A great example of that, is “Subethaedit”:http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/, a text editor based on Rendezvous technology. What subetha allows you to do is work on collaborative texts, on any language or scheme — which is a really fascinating thing in a team development environment, I’m sure you agree.

Now, “that’s awesome” you say. And indeed it is. However, to my own eyes, “Codingmonkeys”:http://www.codingmonkeys.de (the team of german students and developers behind Subethaedit) are lacking some forward-thinking. Subethaedit is great yes, if, used in a Mac-centered-subetha-using development environment, which isn’t always the case (heck, when IS it the case?).

So, how could they change that?

Opening up the protocol behind “Subethaedit”:http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/ would be a huge step. They don’t need to turn Subethaedit open source (they already support oss developers by charging only for commercial use). Imagine the possibilities of having your hybrid team of developers, working on any different number of platforms (hell, enough with windows already - I’m talking unix here, where osx relies on), with one common goal, running on top of subethas Rendezvous code. That would be a production environment.

I’m not exactly sure opening up the protocol would be the be all end all solution on this case, but considering rendezvous isn’t only being developed for Apple OSs or computers anymore (in fact, the 4th technology preview for Windows was released not long ago), what’s on Codemonkeys way to creating a platform-independent collaborative editing technology?

*A note*: I do not use subethaedit, as writing this entry might lead you to believe. Instead, i use the awesome “Textmate”:http://www.macromates.com (not free, but so mature and productive that I can hardly see me go back to using anything else).