How to Handle Multiple Users Editing the Same Data in a Web App

designdesign-patternsweb-applicationsweb-development

There's a project I'm working on that is looking to produce a web application that will manage a task list between multiple users. This is a master task list whose task items get distributed by an authorized user. Each user has his/her own account to login and view the tasks they are assigned; it is possible for multiple users to have a single task in-common.

I am trying to leave details of the project out of this as I'm grappling more with the overall concept of how to handle the following situations, but if it helps, I'm using Java, EclipseLink, and GWT with RequestFactory implemented. The database is PostgreSQL.

So the conceptual problems I am attempting to reconcile are the following:

  1. If a single task that is common to multiple users changes in any way e.g. task completed, deleted, etc., the task list of all the users who have this task will be updated. What design patterns are there that assist in implementing this function?

    • Some patterns I have looked at are Observer and Mediator – are there others that should be considered over these?

  2. Say there are two users changing the same task at the same time.

    • First, should I allow that situation to happen or should I put a lock on it until one or the other person is done making changes?

    • Second, if I don't put a lock on it, how do I reconcile whose changes to accept? This involves the situation in 1 because user 1 could submit the data and before user 2 receives the updated data, he/she may have gone ahead and submitted his/her's changes.

I am really looking for any guiding points, advice, or tips you can provide on how to properly sync data between multiple instances of this web app. I would very much appreciate it!

Best Answer

I think Whiteboard will be your pattern of choice for #1, you should post changes to tasks (or other shared data) in a common place, so all interested parties can see them and DTRT.

For #2, you need to look at optimistic locking. Basically, you need to timestamp all your editable records with the last update time. When you try to save the record, you first verify that the record in the database has the same last-updated timestamp as your record. If not, then someone has updated the record and you now have to either get the updated record and inform the user that they need to enter their changes again, or you can try to merge the user's changes into the updated record (which usually turns out to be either simple or impossible).

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