Multi-Facet data
[This posting may not make sense to anyone since I'm exploring some of my ideas about data and web, how the web is so much text based but isn't treated as objects a la the hypertext world envisioned by Ted Nelson. I was thinking about how Squeak would make for a slow web browers and what can be done to make it go faster. Browers like Firefox are interpreters like Squeak so why not the same efficiency? Maybe because Squeak has to treat each web page one character a time while Firefox can treat it as chunk of html's? I'm not sure...]
Today, data is viewed treated as one thing. You can look at it in many ways: in a 3d environment, you can move the camera around the 3d thing or move the character/object (i.e., spin it) in front of the camera. Or in SQL world, you can organize the data in several tables. But the data are kept just one way. Obviously you don't want to keep two versions of the same data (other than for configuration management or versioning), since it may be hard to keep multiple copies of the same data up to date.
However, as a user, I want to organize and see data in different ways. In more ways than one "right way." An example is with browsers: I hate it when the web site sets their own font face and size and even the window/view size. I want to undo those settings and see it my way. I also want to pick and choose what I want to see, not what others want me to see. In USENET, there has been a filtering option to not see postings by specific users (or even class of users based on email or ID). I want to do the same with blog comments or even blog postings (when more than one author posts on a blog). [I guess this would allow ad removals and won't look good to the ad based industry -- I myself have unabashedly added google ads to my blogs (grin). But then just as TiVo has been shaking up the ad-based TV shows, user filtering shouldn't be a big deal: learn to live with it.]
Today, data is viewed treated as one thing. You can look at it in many ways: in a 3d environment, you can move the camera around the 3d thing or move the character/object (i.e., spin it) in front of the camera. Or in SQL world, you can organize the data in several tables. But the data are kept just one way. Obviously you don't want to keep two versions of the same data (other than for configuration management or versioning), since it may be hard to keep multiple copies of the same data up to date.
However, as a user, I want to organize and see data in different ways. In more ways than one "right way." An example is with browsers: I hate it when the web site sets their own font face and size and even the window/view size. I want to undo those settings and see it my way. I also want to pick and choose what I want to see, not what others want me to see. In USENET, there has been a filtering option to not see postings by specific users (or even class of users based on email or ID). I want to do the same with blog comments or even blog postings (when more than one author posts on a blog). [I guess this would allow ad removals and won't look good to the ad based industry -- I myself have unabashedly added google ads to my blogs (grin). But then just as TiVo has been shaking up the ad-based TV shows, user filtering shouldn't be a big deal: learn to live with it.]
posted by DannyHSDad at
9:25 PM
