Thoughts while reading this article by @danshipper about the notetaking cold war
Roam, notetaking ontology, and what software is for
8 tweets · June 2020 · 25 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
> You’ll notice that there’s no great debate about the best way to organize the information inside of a CRM. It’s fairly obvious how to do that: a CRM should be a long list of customers. Nope! #roamcult actually thinks a CRM should also be intertwingled:
Hmm… looking at Essentialism ↔ Pragmatism debate… I would say the @RoamResearch side is better framed as "Relationalism" or "Contextualism" or something. It's taking more of an active stand than simply "instrumental value". Dan's description of P resonates with that:
> notice something really important about software: all software does the same thing. > Software lets us record information, store it, transform it, and then retrieve it at an appropriate point in the future. …not false, but this frame seems both too narrow & too abstract.
Like I find myself wanting to say "sure, technically, but that doesn't highlight the limitations nor possibilities of software compared to other tools or techniques. Tools are relational. They let us have certain kinds of experiences of ourselves while we're using it.
I find myself wanting to say "Roam is a notetaking app, but it is not a notes app". It doesn't have "notes". Its metaphor isn't totally clear (I've been musing about this) but it's clearly different from notes/notebook (essentially file/folder analog)
Hmm… yeah, some interesting stuff here about the nature of structure for a given type. Ontology. Is structure of information explicit & predefined, or implicit & emergent? Roam will powerfully queer that distinction. Talked w @Conaw last year about this.
Aaaaand I have hit the paywall. Hm, I'm curious to read the rest of this, but not $20 worth of curious. 🤷♀️