I couldn't find if this topic has already been re-hashed this decade. But I was wondering if there is any value in discussing alternative names to the "Tiddly" part of the TiddlyWIki project. This project has been around for so long that renaming / rebranding would be quite an effort. And the Tiddly part is unique within programming projects, which helps to eliminate false positives when searching for sample code.
I am an American living on the Pacific Coast, so my linguistic preferences are definitely different from Jeremy's. But just saying the word 'Tiddly' out loud feels like trying to get people from certain Germany dialects to say the word "Squirrel." It always feels forced to me. A joke by Lt. Commander Data on Star Trek the Next Generation was about someone mispronouncing 'kidneys' as 'kiddleys.' We the store keeper corrected him, the customer contested, "No, I said 'kiddleys.' Diddle I?" >From just a project standpoint, the word 'Tiddly' is trying to focus on the "small amount" of data or code that should be in any one unit. This way many units can be combined in various ways to satisfy different needs. Although it is intended to produce a Wiki-like user interface with deep linking and back references, the way you go about it is by breaking up large pieces of information into re-usable components. If your goal is to create "tiddlers," then using a TiddlyWiki application would be a natural fit. If the goal of most people is to make small units of re-usable components, then perhaps a different prefix would make it more appealing. Again, this is just a personal opinion and not a slight on the TiddlyWiki project as a whole, which I have been using frequently everyday. There have been two alternate words kicking around in my head lately. TipWiki or DotWiki. 'Tip' has a very similar double meaning to Tiddly - drunk people can be 'tiddly' or 'tipsy', and just the 'tip' of something or a 'tiddly' amount of something is quite small. There is an additional English meaning of 'tip' to mean 'a small note or suggestion.' That seems to be actually the point of TiddlyWiki: Make lots of small notes that can be re-combined as pieces of many different larger pages. 'Tiddlers' would become 'Tips', and a single 'tiddler' would become a single 'tip.' Phonetically, it feels a lot easier to talk about. 'Dot' has an inherent meaning of 'smallest possible mark or amount.' This would again drive home the concept of making the smallest possible content for any one unit of information. Unfortunately, dots are already associated with the 'dot notation' of Object Oriented Programming, so that could make it a little confusing as to the overall goal for people with software development backgrounds. The goal of renaming the project would be to push the desire for "smallness" of the individual unit using a more standard English word. Please forgive me if I am pushing anyone's buttons here. This topic was just on my mind. Thank you for your time. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/7fa59268-4da8-4e24-8d8a-b03fb79bc1fcn%40googlegroups.com.
