Shawn recently introduced me to TiddlyWiki, which Stéfan Sinclair has also blogged. It is a web page (with over 5000 lines of code) that acts as a wiki if you have write priviledges to the file. It is an extremely smart and simple tool that I don\’t really think of as a wiki since it really is more like a web page application for private and local use. You can use it to keep notes on your local computer just by saving an empty page.
I have the feeling there is a principle to technologies like TiddlyWiki – simple objects that are both application and data, documents that carry the smarts needed so you don\’t need a separate application (well actually you do need a browser.) Reminds me of the document-centric view of OpenDoc that Apple tried unsuccessfully to promote. What other TiddlyWiki like doc/apps can we imagine:
- A Curriculum Vitae that one can add items to and reorganize in different views.
- A Bibliography that lets you maintain references and then export them.
- A Analyze Me TiddlyWiki that lets you paste in data (or text) to study and then lets you run analysis on it to get results that become part of the document