Hi Dave

> This is more just a curiosity question about tiddlywiki development history.  
> As I slowly learn how to use the filters in filter lists as logic controls 
> it's dawned on me that this seems pretty unique, but what do I know, I've 
> never taken a computer programming course in my life (I'm just a coding 
> groupie, ha ha).
> 
> Is this type of logical control unique to TW5, or are there other esoteric 
> languages (like Haskell (just a random guess) that use similar methods?

TW5 is really two separate languages that tackle different dimensions of the 
problem:

* A declarative markup language based on HTML for representing widgets. Unlike 
HTML elements, widgets dynamically create and delete their own child widgets as 
they “refresh” themselves to track changes to the tiddler store
* A procedural query language that is philosophically influenced by Forth

I think the filter language is unique, but it flows very naturally from the 
idea of a list of titles being the simplest, degenerate filter. Most query 
languages are declarative, but TW5 filters have a definite sense of sequential 
execution

> If it is unique, how likely is it that this will catch on in other areas of 
> computing?  Will TW5 "take over the world”?

TW is part of a chorus of new ideas in information management as we move beyond 
paper-based metaphors for information. Much of TW isn’t unique at all: it is 
relatively orthodox in hypertext terms, having many of the characteristics that 
Ted Nelson identified when he coined the term.

It’s very hard for me to see which of the unique elements of TW’s design might 
stand the test of time. I suspect that most of them are just provoked by the 
specific constraints imposed by using the browser as a platform

One thing I am reasonably confident of is that the discoveries we’ve made 
through using TW5 are timeless because they’re more about our perception of how 
our brains work than any particular generation of software: that the only 
purpose of recording information is to reuse it, and the way to optimise 
information for reuse is to cut it up into the smallest semantic units and use 
transclusion to weave it back together into a multiplicity of alternative, 
different structures. I expect others to formulate these discoveries better, 
and for them to gradually become mainstream.

Best wishes

Jeremy


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