Jeremy, I appreciate the continued focus on leveraging tiddlers as the basic store but we need to extend their handling in some ways if we want them to also represent records in the equivalent of database tables. Here I am thinking of hiding the "data record" tiddlers from standard searches without prefixing them with $:/ and somehow enabling *the same key (tiddlername) *to be used to address different records in different logical tables/or namespaces (see below).
To me however allowing the designer to to make use of fully featured "data tiddlers" adds great strength to tiddlywikis ability to respond to all possible data structures someone may wish to represent in tiddlywiki. Enabling JSON to the fullest extent also increases TiddlyWikis ability to interact with external data sources as many sources such as xml can be converted to JSON if not yet available. We do not need to code for all possible data sources if we comprehensively adopt a robust standard like JSON because we can leverage external tools written for the conversion of data between standards and maintained by others. Joshua's tools are extensive and I hope they may improve such handling in the future. *Given the maxim that if you place a problem on the table you should place a possible solution there as well;* - If we could introduce additional name spaces which are not in the tiddler name, such that when one of these is set the <<currentNamespace>> can refer to the tiddlers there in with <<currentTiddler>> then a database table could be created in its own namespace, with identical tiddler names to those in other namespaces. A names space can be used as a table name. - Of course this would be a challenging thing to implement but its benefits would be extensive and would allow further use of tiddlers as the atom of data. Careful design would make the use of additional namespaces invisible until a user/designer starts to use additional ones. - To be able to filter tiddlers in one namespace and use this as a key to tiddlers in another namespace would be needed. - This can be done with prefixes, remove prefix and lookup operator but the logic is far more complex and harder to follow or design. Regards Tony On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 2:49:00 AM UTC+10, Jeremy Ruston wrote: > > Hi Mat > > Some history that may help… data tiddlers were added quite close to the > start of TW5. They were part of the work to implement colour palettes; I > was concerned about the proliferation of tiddlers if each system colour > were to be given its own tiddler. > > > https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/commit/baff9016858133d300a9662ffd1782568454f8eb > > My initial intention was to provide support for generic JSON tiddlers, > with syntax to address individual items within such a tiddler. Data > tiddlers would have been one of a number of alternative representations for > specific schemas. Joshua is now exploring ideas along those lines. > > But my gradual conclusions were that: > > * Adding the “index” mechanism for addressing items within a data tiddler > introduced a lot of complexity right across the code base that is still > there today > * Figuring out an addressing mechanism for items within a JSON object > would end up re-inventing something as complex as JSONPath > * Proliferation of tiddlers isn’t actually a problem for performance with > the core. The problem is more cognitive; too many random tiddlers and most > of our lists become useless. There are lots of ways we can address that > issue — for things like palettes I would we might pack the individual > tiddlers into a plugin > > We do of course also use JSON as a container format for tiddler files, but > that is handled by the import mechanism. > > Best wishes > > Jereym > > > > On 23 Jul 2019, at 02:32, Mat <[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: > > What is the point with JSON tiddlers over regular tiddlers? What do they > enable and what limitations are there? > > One point that I do get is that other software often has the possibility > to export/import JSON so it could enable data transfer with TW. > > There does not seem to be an advantage when it comes to data tiddlers > because the JSON data tiddlers can only be on the JSON root level whereas a > regular tiddler is deeper. > > One reason why I'm asking is because I hope to build a UI for Jeds > FederationCore > plugin > <https://ooktech.xyz:8443/Public#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2FFederation%2FFederationCore> > > that extracts data from the so called tiddler "bundle" which is the format > that fetched tiddlers come in. Bundles can be packed into a special bundle > format or into JSON. > > Thank you! > > <:-) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TiddlyWikiDev" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywikidev/c8c24a82-a99e-402b-8b79-e6ff02ff8184%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywikidev/c8c24a82-a99e-402b-8b79-e6ff02ff8184%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWikiDev" 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/tiddlywikidev/f54ebf05-1eb0-4b9b-ac46-9e8230c196c1%40googlegroups.com.
