For structured data, do you prefer indexes (and data tiddlers) or fields ?

[Charlie Veniot]

G'day,

I'm just curious about the experience-based philosophies out there.

Personally, I have a preference for indexes (and data tiddlers), reserving fields when a data tiddler is overkilll (more work than it is worth.)

How about you?  When do you prefer using indexes (and data tiddlers), and when do you prefer using tiddler fields ?

[Mark S.]

In other systems data tiddlers (or their equivalents) are a foundational aspect of their design. Not so in TW. In TW data tiddlers are just a stop-gap, a convenience tool to be used in a limited set of circumstance. For instance, note that JSON data tiddlers can only go one level deep.

Try doing anything more than very simple data referencing, and you'll find that there are very few filter operators that work with data tiddlers. For instance, there is no filter operator to obtain all the values of a data tiddler. 

In TW, the fundamental data structure is the tiddler. There are lots and lots of filter operators that know how to deal with tiddlers and tiddler fields. Data tiddlers are meant for simple one-to-one lookups, like with the color palettes. Beyond that and they become too onerous to work with.

[Charlie Veniot]

G'day Mark,

That makes a ton of sense to me.  I suppose I am a sucker for punishment ...

Just as a for-the-giggles reference point, I am using a Data Tiddler to store Form attributes in my "TiddlyForms" project.

Messy data tiddler, messy mind, messy birds of a feather?

For this scenario, I imagine indexes and fields are equally ghastly devils.

[Mohammad Rahmani]

I think Mark described the situation very well, as he is an expert in the field! Just a simple on-to-one lookup! Also the core was not improved for data tiddlers in recent years and it seems the main plan is to have fields as the main citizens of TW.

Considering the above limitations, I use heavily the dataTiddlers! Two examples are Trashbin and Todolist plugins!

From a programming point of view, tiddlers are used as global permanent variables (until you delete them), so for clean programming and good preactice I use datatiddler whenever I can!

Just my two cents!

--
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 tiddlywiki+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/3348ddc9-d9c2-4429-8f26-05cc88ad733en%40googlegroups.com.

[PMario]

On Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 4:21:58 AM UTC+2 Mark S. wrote:

In other systems data tiddlers (or their equivalents) are a foundational aspect of their design. Not so in TW. In TW data tiddlers are just a stop-gap, a convenience tool to be used in a limited set of circumstance. For instance, note that JSON data tiddlers can only go one level deep.

That's right.

Try doing anything more than very simple data referencing, and you'll find that there are very few filter operators that work with data tiddlers. For instance, there is no filter operator to obtain all the values of a data tiddler. 

See: https://wikilabs.github.io/editions/keyvalues/ ... It can fix that and imo makes working with data tiddlers more convenient.

 

In TW, the fundamental data structure is the tiddler. There are lots and lots of filter operators that know how to deal with tiddlers and tiddler fields. Data tiddlers are meant for simple one-to-one lookups, like with the color palettes. Beyond that and they become too onerous to work with.

That's right and Jeremy has some strong reasoning for that. Data tiddler handling, makes the core code more complex.

See my PR for the above plugin at github: https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/pull/3971#issuecomment-500122689 ++

have fun!

mario

[Charlie Veniot]

Hey, your 2 cents,  each one of our net 2 cents, are each worth at least a buck and a quarter, gross, in my book.

Yeah, I'm a closet bean counter.