&gt; <i>complicated invariants that must hold between different parts of the data.</i><p>Like, oh, when that data is, say, <i>program code</i>. Or text that has to be very consistent in the promises that it is making, or the requirements that it is specifying, and so of forth.<p>I.e. this is good enough for sloppily written collaborative fiction. Writer W0 kills a character C0 in chapter 3, while writer W1 not knowing about this removal of C0 causes the character to appear in chapter 4. Oh well, the sky isn&#x27;t going to fall!<p>Even if these changes are in the same file, and even if the diff and patch identify textual conflicts, the chapters are too far apart for these changes to be so identified.<p>The aim in this algorithm seems to be to make it so easy and transparent that <i>all</i> textual conflicts disappear, presumably because the target audience is users whose heads would explode at the idea of resolving a conflict. (Rather than just swell up and get sore, as in the case of software developers accustomed to version control.)