[Vimoutliner] how to abstract from tree to graphs, or at least have hyperlinks

[Steve Litt]

On Thursday 06 July 2006 11:15 am, Peter Princz wrote:
[clip]
> I have several projects running in parallel. :(
> As I arrive in the morning, I try to pick at least one atomic activity
> from each project a la round-robin, and try to make some progress. It
> works most of the time, but sometimes I get deadlines, so this
> round-robin should be weighted somehow and give much attention to a
> specific project on a certain calendar day.
>
> Would be nice to think on a calendar day as nothing else that a
> collection of pointers to arbitrary leafs of the work breakdown
> structures under Projects.
> Planning wouldn't be else than yanking leafs, or references to leafs
> under calendar days.
>
> I tried several methods so far, but don't like them:

Hi everyone,

Let me throw out this question for the sake of discussion. Are we starting to 
feel the limits of the Vim engine? Cloning appears nearly impossible with the 
Vim engine, and in my opinion the current VO hoisting is pretty rocky.

Every data relationship Peter discusses, plus cloning and hoisting, could be 
represented in Postgres or MySQL, both of which are standard on most Linux 
boxen, without wierd kludges. Relational databases accommodate things like 
hoisting, cloning and other relationships that a pure hierarchy would choke 
on or require some pretty iffy kludges. As a matter of fact, years ago 
Gabriel Horner came to my house and showed off a MySQL enhanced VO with some 
pretty enhanced capabilities. Gabriel -- U still on the list?

I think that if we ever do make a DBMS back end, several things are vital:

1) Vim based VimOutliner remains the "main" version forever.
2) The DBMS backed version could be called "VO Magnum" or something like that.
3) The DBMS version's main front end should respond to VO keystrokes.
4) The DBMS version should be able to import and export to standard VO.
5) In all respects, the current VO should be the prototype for the DBMS based 
VO.
6) The building of the DBMS version, if it happens at all, should be done 
slowly with lots of discussion on the list.
7) Before we could really begin, we'd need a maintainer. There's no guarantee 
that either Noel or I would have the time for developing/maintaining the DBMS 
version.
8) The DBMS version could have an additional front end (besides the VO clone) 
that would be much more "user friendly" and therefore slower for a touch 
typist. That version should teach the VO keystrokes so that it's really just 
a transition.
9) There must be a backup mechanism.
10) There must be a committed culture of cooperation between the two VO's so 
that, to the extent, good features of either end up in the other, and so that 
keystrokes are identical, and so that key combinations aren't glutonously 
consumed.

Like I said, I'm not necessarily suggesting we do this, and if we eventually 
do, I'm not implying it will be done anytime soon. I'm just starting a bull 
session.

SteveT