53 Idea to avoid the need to split intervals

Status: This chapter records exploratory or unsuccessful design work and is retained for historical reference.

Consider that we never split intervals under OT. Instead we allow intervals to overlap! i.e. in list of (s,t,q,n) we always find that q's strictly increase. However we may find that an interval encompasses some of the intervals that directly proceed it.

i.e. instead of linked list like this: 

    [1-----------)
                 [2----)
                        [1--)
                                  [3------------------)

We may have: 

    [1-----------      ------)
                 [2----)
                                  [3------------------)

There are 2 options:

  1. Intervals have n increased to account for insertions within them
  2. Intervals do not have n increased

It is not clear which is better. We should initially assume 2) since not needing to mutate existing intervals seems to be an advantage.

Never splitting intervals can be more space efficient.