Side topic: filter logic is from... where?

[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?

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

[Mark S.]

I've never seen anything like it. It reminds me a little of SQL, except that it lacks grouping.

-- Mark

[Jeremy Ruston]

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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[Mohammad]

On Sunday, November 11, 2018 at 11:39:10 PM UTC+3:30, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

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.

This is quite true! and Tiddlywiki do the job very well in this respect !

[TonyM]

Dave,

Really good Question, I think the filter model arises and comes to the surface because of the tiddler as the basic unit of information. Basically filters are about selecting lists. Everything and Nothing in new in computing, Lists are sets, and a vast part of computing is set manipulation, I remember using a 5th Generation report programming language decades ago that operated in a similar way, you would name what you wanted listed, the order and the software replies.  No need to code the loops and the exit criteria making it a non procedural language, but then tiddlers makes it a little like an object oriented programming language, but then it behaves like a Website and leverages Browser technology and standards.

To me it is not the filter system itself but how you can build upon it,  how universally it can be applied, how much TW can be configured, the User Interface customisability and the fact that the whole "kit and caboodle" exists in your hands, and possibly in a single file.

I think this combination is unique, TW5 has taken over my world!

Regards

Tony