Comments on: Structured Online Laboratory Notebooks http://third-bit.com/blog/archives/786.html Data is ones and zeroes | Software is ones and zeroes and hard work. Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:07:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: The Third Bit » Blog Archive » Bitten Again http://third-bit.com/blog/archives/786.html#comment-821 The Third Bit » Blog Archive » Bitten Again Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:47:18 +0000 http://pyre.third-bit.com/blog/archives/786.html#comment-821 [...] I’m helping to edit a book for O’Reilly, and we’re keeping details on contributors, and the status of their chapters, in a little SQLite database.  The database file is kept under version control, since everything should be; unfortunately, Subversion doesn’t know how to diff or merge concurrent changes.  I’ve griped about this before: just as languages become more useful when functions and classes are first-class values, so too do data formats become more usable when they are supported by tools that let people create them collaboratively.  Moving the data itself onto the web (as I suggested to scientists who are using Excel spreadsheets as structured lab notebooks) is a stopgap measure: the real world will always require people to work offline from time to time, and we damn well ought to support it. [...] [...] I’m helping to edit a book for O’Reilly, and we’re keeping details on contributors, and the status of their chapters, in a little SQLite database.  The database file is kept under version control, since everything should be; unfortunately, Subversion doesn’t know how to diff or merge concurrent changes.  I’ve griped about this before: just as languages become more useful when functions and classes are first-class values, so too do data formats become more usable when they are supported by tools that let people create them collaboratively.  Moving the data itself onto the web (as I suggested to scientists who are using Excel spreadsheets as structured lab notebooks) is a stopgap measure: the real world will always require people to work offline from time to time, and we damn well ought to support it. [...]

]]> By: Blake Winton http://third-bit.com/blog/archives/786.html#comment-820 Blake Winton Fri, 19 Jan 2007 03:06:07 +0000 http://pyre.third-bit.com/blog/archives/786.html#comment-820 Sounds like a job for Dabble DB... http://dabbledb.com/ (Specifically, the "You can export all of your data in several different formats" likely includes a diffable format. Later, Blake. Sounds like a job for Dabble DB…
http://dabbledb.com/

(Specifically, the “You can export all of your data in several different formats” likely includes a diffable format.

Later,
Blake.

]]> By: Yoni http://third-bit.com/blog/archives/786.html#comment-819 Yoni Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:29:33 +0000 http://pyre.third-bit.com/blog/archives/786.html#comment-819 The problem with excel is not that the format is binary, but that it is closed-source. Isn't it the same with Google's spreadsheets? How is being in-browser better for me in this context? the format is still closed. If you save stuff in XML, it's not closed. You can do a line-by-line diff, but it's not a nice approach. You can do more meaningful things, like node-by-node comparison, showing a list of modified nodes using xpath language, and so on. With XML being an open standard, I expect that generic XML diff tools will improve in the future. However, for specific domains, like spreadsheets, you want more than that. You want to show the changes at the same level that they were made, right? I am not talking just about textual changes. How would you show, for example, that the color and font of a cell changed? It is all about the transformation between presentation layer and storage layer. In order to show the diff in a domain specific way, you need to reverse that transformation. I guess the reason nobody got rich & famous for this yet, is that every application/domain uses a different transformations. By the way, even with text-based diff, not all meta-data changes are trivially visible. For example, when using Eclipse, why is it that both Subversion and Subversive can't show you the changes to svn properties such as svn:ignore? The problem with excel is not that the format is binary, but that it is closed-source. Isn’t it the same with Google’s spreadsheets? How is being in-browser better for me in this context? the format is still closed.

If you save stuff in XML, it’s not closed. You can do a line-by-line diff, but it’s not a nice approach. You can do more meaningful things, like node-by-node comparison, showing a list of modified nodes using xpath language, and so on.

With XML being an open standard, I expect that generic XML diff tools will improve in the future. However, for specific domains, like spreadsheets, you want more than that. You want to show the changes at the same level that they were made, right? I am not talking just about textual changes. How would you show, for example, that the color and font of a cell changed?

It is all about the transformation between presentation layer and storage layer. In order to show the diff in a domain specific way, you need to reverse that transformation.
I guess the reason nobody got rich & famous for this yet, is that every application/domain uses a different transformations.

By the way, even with text-based diff, not all meta-data changes are trivially visible. For example, when using Eclipse, why is it that both Subversion and Subversive can’t show you the changes to svn properties such as svn:ignore?

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