In my latest “brain-age” game (Coding Fun: My take on recipe ingredients), I’ve gone all-in with structured data.
(Aside: I tend to prefer using data tiddlers over fields, but that’s the kind of conversation that deserves its own thread.)
Although structured data is very cool, I usually much prefer the loosey-goosey unstructured data.
Like just about all things, which is better (structured or unstructured)
-
it depends
Structured data involves big effort up front, but with substantial benefits later. -
However, structure done wrong (big analysis up front did not consider some things until elucidation happened while knee-deep in the thick of it) can involve big effort re-jigging things if “quickly adjustable re-design” wasn’t built it. (Maintaining documentation, even if just bread-crumbs, makes a re-jigging effort so much easier, but even maintaining bread-crumbs can be some effort.)
-
Building structure for possible future needs that never happen, that makes big effort up-front not so pretty re the cost-benefit ratio
Unstructured data involves little effort up-front (immediate benefit), but could require big effort later: i.e. having to move all of that unstructured data into fields when structure is needed.
Way too many thoughts about it all to write here. I’d need a dedicated TiddlyWiki.
All of that to say that my “brain-age” game of structured recipe ingredients may turn into an expanded game that pits structured recipe ingredients head-to-head with unstructured ingredients.
Proof in the pudding, advantages and disadvantages to both, maybe some trickery.
Maybe via a shared TiddlyWiki running on nodejs, on a virtual machine, if anybody is interested. I do have, I think, enough credit in my Google Compute Engine to setup a virtual machine for some collaborative “brain-age” structured vs unstructured recipe tomfoolery for a couple of months…