Fluidinfo

Much of the thinking behind FluidDB comes from thinking how we work with information in the real world, and comparing that to how we do so in the computational world (aka Hobgoblin Hall). The differences are striking.

Over the years, I’ve often asked myself why things are so bizarre in the computational world and why we don’t do something about it. Without going into the answers to those questions, I’ll just say that I think we’ve all grown up in Hobgoblin Hall and despite the fact that we’re all perfectly familiar with the freedoms of the outside world, we take it for granted that things are deeply weird in our computational homes.

Here I’ll quickly outline a few of the more glaring oddities. (BTW, I’d be remiss not to point out that FluidDB has none of the following restrictions.)

Things must be named, and have one name. In the real world we have plenty of things that don’t have names. As I look around my desk right now, I can see dozens of things that don’t have names. We also often give things many names – first names, surnames, nicknames, abbreviated names, English/Spanish/Chinese/etc names. Flexibility in naming (no names, one name, multiple names, private names, etc) is obviously of great utility. Yet in computational systems we’re usually compelled to name things, and we’re restricted to a single name. These are just a couple of the problems I have with file systems – I have about 10 others, but will spare you.

Inconsistency and ambiguity are common in the real world. While they’re obviously often not helpful, there are times when it is very useful to have both. Things may become clearer over time. Systems evolve. In the natural world we use representations that allow high degrees of inconsistency and ambiguity, and it’s very useful to be able to do so – how else would we learn or get anything accomplished if not? Yet if you suggest a computational system that explicitly allows for any level of inconsistency and ambiguity in information, people start to get nervous or even upset. They’ll begin to argue with you, and suggest ways to “fix” the system to get rid of the undesirable qualities. Why is that?

Multiple organizations of the same information are very common in the natural world. We do it all the time. Computationally it’s rare that systems allow us to multiply organize things. That’s changing, thankfully, with the rise of tagging and with music collection software that allows multiple simultaneous playlists (or “smart” dynamic playlists) of the same underlying sound files. But those systems are the exception rather than the rule.

There’s an obsession with “meaning” and pinning down what things are “about” in the computational world. In the real world we don’t seem to care that much – we’re more concerned with utility. What’s a book for? Something to read? Something to stop other objects from blowing away? Something to be hollowed out to hold a gun? Something to create an intellectual impression? A decoration? Something to hold up other books? A hiding place? A book can be all these things, and we can move seamlessly between them. What’s a glass for? Is it a weapon? Something we can hold to the wall to hear a conversation? Something to use as an insect trap? A fingerprint capturing device? A musical instrument? Maybe even something to drink out of? We don’t really know, and it’s not important to know. We don’t obsess over the “meaning” of a glass or try to determine what single thing it might be “about” etc. We just use it as we see fit. Similarly we can’t anticipate how people will want to use information – and our storage architecture shouldn’t try. (You could counter by pointing out the FluidDB about tag. But usage of the about tag is entirely optional. It’s a convenience. You can make your own, or use none at all. And a FluidDB object can be about whatever you think it’s about and used for whatever you want to use it for – even if others have completely different interpretations of and uses for the same object. No problem.)

Later (meta?) data is often most usefully put with the original data. That’s what we commonly do in the real world. It’s convenient, easy, useful, and natural. For example, when you’re reading a book and you want to remember what page you’re up to, you can simpy dog-ear the page or insert a bookmark. The extra information travels with the book. In the computational world you can’t do things like that unless a programmer has anticipated that you might want to and made provision for the extra information in the underlying data structure (or database). So we’re very often forced to put extra unanticipated information elsewhere – e.g., in a file, in our heads. Unfortunately, that later information is often the most important – because it’s generated by individuals who are trying to customize or personalize their computational world. I’ll have much more to say about that another time. For now: a writable architecture like FluidDB does not have this limitation because you can always put the new (meta?) information with the old (content?). And search on it, etc. That offers a fundamental change in how we work with information. I’ll blog about it at length one of these days. You get to think about it in the meantime 🙂