Incremental non-chronological synchronization of namespaces

A computer-implemented method for synchronizing information in namespaces stored on one or more computer storage media, the method comprising:

• receiving an indication of a change to information in a first namespace, the indication of the change comprising a notice of a reference to an entity in a second namespace, and wherein the reference indicates that the information in the first namespace refers to the entity;
• determining that the entity has a characteristic that conflicts with the information in the first namespace;
• creating a temporary representation of the entity within the second namespace, the temporary representation of the entity comprising a phantom entity in the second namespace;
• receiving a second indication of a second change to information in the first namespace and, in response to the second indication, modifying a state of the phantom entity;
• and
• removing the phantom entity from the second namespace upon resolving the conflict between the characteristic of the entity and the information in the first namespace.

A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable components, comprising:

• a synchronization environment comprising an associated external namespace, an associated central namespace, and a synchronization mechanism, the synchronization mechanism being configured to receive, in a first order that differs from a second order, change information from the external namespace that identifies a plurality of changes to at least one object in the external namespace, the second order being a temporal order in which the plurality of changes occurred to the at least one object in the external namespace, the synchronization mechanism further comprising:
• a name resolving component being configured to avoid name collisions and comprising a first subspace for transient objects and a second subspace for non-transient objects, one or more of the non-transient objects comprising objects that have not been identified as having a name that is no longer valid;
• and
• a temporary placeholder component within the central namespace, the temporary placeholder component comprising an identifier on a phantom entity in the central namespace, the phantom entity indicating that an object that is referred to by another object in the central namespace has not yet been formally created, the temporary placeholder component being operative to:
• avoid a conflict created by a dangling reference, the dangling reference comprising an error corresponding to one object in the central namespace referring to another object in the central namespace that does not exist;
• and
• be removed from the central namespace when the conflict is resolved.