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Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

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Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#91

Post by jolux »

tangjeff0 wrote: post #82
jolux wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should probably model a knowledge graph with a graph database! I realize this seems intuitive, but the relational model has proven itself to be surprisingly flexible in its ability to store multiple different data models efficiently. Similar arguments were made about the suitability of document stores to social networking websites ten years ago, and I think we know how that panned out. > SQL databases are indeed…

Well the other aspect of it is that DataScript is client-side. That said, we could use sqlite in browser or even IndexedDB at this point. Yes, a pure JS/TS alternative without a graph db implementation is possible . But when I started, I chose the same language and db to ensure parity would always be much more possible. Haven't tried recursive CTEs before, maybe I should dig into it more!

> Yes, a pure JS/TS alternative without a graph db implementation is possible. But when I started, I chose the same language and db to ensure parity would always be much more possible.

To be clear, I think Datalog and Clojure are both actually really cool, I'm just a huge SQL fan too. I think the architectural decisions you made in this case make perfect sense :)

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#92

Post by randomchars »

diego898 wrote: post #84

Jeff (@tangjeff), Im sure you're already familiar with Tiddlywiki[1]. How does this compare/draw from/improve/etc on that? For those who arent familiar with TW, I encourage you to check it out. Its one of the original bi-directional linked, open-sourced, graph-based (as revealed with TiddlyMap plugin, though not using a graph database) note-taking apps that is completely customizable. It was recently posted and discu…

I've tried to use TiddleWiki, and while it's an impressive piece of software, it suffers from the same issue many other community-run open source software does: it's ugly, and hard to use.

Yeah, I get it, there are themes and plugins, but still, all of them are ugly.

And that's just the surface, I've had a few deeper complaints too.

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#93

Post by AriseAndPass »

tangjeff0 wrote: post #80
AriseAndPass wrote: post #73

I use Roam, and I've had my eye on your project for many months now, so I'm super excited to see you come so far. I'm also passionate about privacy and having control over my data - IIRC the way Roam handles image uploads is by uploading the image to firebase and giving you a link that anyone can use to view your image, with no way to delete that image, so you just have to trust in the 'unlisted' nature of the link.…

EDN import is done, just want to improve performance in Athens as most Roam dbs are bigger. I know Roam users will have higher expectations :) https://github.com/athensresearch/athens/pull/561

!! the day has come :)

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#94

Post by beefman »

bachmeier wrote: post #70

A few alternatives in this space: org-roam https://www.orgroam.com/ tiddlyroam https://tiddlyroam.org/ Dendron https://dendron.so/ Foam https://foambubble.github.io/foam/ Remnote https://www.remnote.io/ Obsidian https://obsidian.md/ logseq https://logseq.com/ Not an expert with them at all. I've never had a desire to dig into all their complexity, but some are pretty passionate about it.

RemNote looks good. From the FAQ

Data Ownership: You own your data - always. You'll be able to export all data in its raw state and import it to another tool.

Free Access Guarantee: We'll always provide a feature-rich, free-for-life version of RemNote. Current users will never be asked to pay for any feature they're already using, in the feature's current state.

Guaranteed Access Clause: In the extremely unlikely event that RemNote ever winds down (don't worry - we are 100% committed and fully expect and plan to be here for the long-haul), we will release all code into an open source project. You could run RemNote as a local desktop app (RemNote already works fully offline) and/or the open source community could host RemNote independently.

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#95

Post by hvlck »

karlicoss wrote: post #81
bachmeier wrote: post #70

A few alternatives in this space: org-roam https://www.orgroam.com/ tiddlyroam https://tiddlyroam.org/ Dendron https://dendron.so/ Foam https://foambubble.github.io/foam/ Remnote https://www.remnote.io/ Obsidian https://obsidian.md/ logseq https://logseq.com/ Not an expert with them at all. I've never had a desire to dig into all their complexity, but some are pretty passionate about it.

My dream would be seamless interoperation between all these tools. Would also mean better 'competition', easier to convince people to try them, avoiding lock-in in one tool, etc etc. For some tools it's already possible to interoperate -- for them would be nice to have summaries on what are the caveats (e.g. would the tool format my whole note base? would it break any special syntax imposed by the other tool? etc etc…

I've been thinking of a tool to generate a kind of schema for a website, similar to RDF[0] or JSON-LD[1]. The end goal of this would be interoperability between tools - ideally I could browse HN and other related sites or forums in my RSS reader with a unified interface, or translate the Roam note format into the Athens equivalent to use with either.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework

[1] https://json-ld.org/

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#96

Post by naderkhalil »

I used to use Roam before the $15/mo pricing (might be more than any subscription I have today). I've tried using a bunch of different notetaking apps: notion, obsidian...but I keep returning to my Apple notes. Looking forward to trying this out. Thank you!!

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#97

Post by ryanSrich »

vemv wrote: post #29

I wonder if the quite extremely early/intense competition that Roam faced as soon as it was shared publicly will result in none of the competitors succeeding (at the very least as a viable for-profit company). It's possible that sometimes we have to let early ideas fully succeed to see how the market actually performs. Else one can end up in an arms-race situation that ultimately only leads to a tiny user base for ea…

Yeah I tend to favor the original unless the clones offer something with real differentiation. "Use this because its free and open source, but it's pretty much the exact same thing" isn't compelling to me. I'm not saying Athens is doing this, or that it won't succeed. It's just not a very compelling story imo.

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#98

Post by porker »

junipertea wrote: post #68

I use obsidian right now. I do enjoy the convenience of markdown files, do you have any specific use case where the graph DB would be superior to them? Would it stop scaling at very large notes? Furthermore, the biggest painpoint for me is sync and cross-platform support. I have to use dayone, a journal app on iOS, because the experience (of actually writing thoughts) of any other app is just too inconvenient for rig…

> do you have any specific use case where the graph DB would be superior to them?

Outlining. Treating each bullet as its own document. Granular embedding.

I've been using Obsidian to gather research and plan requirements for a software project. It's worked well, but feels like using a wiki with a few extra features.

I wanted to use Roam but the privacy policy wasn't suitable. I think with Roam I'd have ended up with less duplication as I could transclude more.

Also, miss a visual editor. If Obsidian and Typora had a child, would be amazing

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#99

Post by tangjeff0 »

diego898 wrote: post #84

Jeff (@tangjeff), Im sure you're already familiar with Tiddlywiki[1]. How does this compare/draw from/improve/etc on that? For those who arent familiar with TW, I encourage you to check it out. Its one of the original bi-directional linked, open-sourced, graph-based (as revealed with TiddlyMap plugin, though not using a graph database) note-taking apps that is completely customizable. It was recently posted and discu…

The first time I used Tiddly years ago, the UX never resonated with me so I wasn't able to get over the learning curve.

More recently, one of our users gave me a pretty detailed tour of their Tiddly, which shares sentiments of the other commenters. Single file is great until it's not. Lots of plugins but requires manual config. Needing to startup a server to collaborate wasn't great.

What "killer features" do you think Tiddly has?

Re: Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research

#100

Post by tangjeff0 »

nynx wrote: post #88

This is great stuff, Jeff. I sponsored athens for a while—stopped after you got funded by YC—but I'm still glad things are going well. Now that there are a couple of apps that are doing this kind of thing, I think it might be time to start looking at whether bi-directional links could be a W3 standard in some way (i.e. a standard bidirectional link metadata endpoint). It'd be awesome to bi-directionally link across f…

https://twitter.com/flancian is working on a generic tech that would bridge notetaking apps together. The important syntax we all agree on is [[wikilinks]] and some subset of markdown, but anything beyond that would require pretty close coordination.

I do wonder if additional features are added, especially those that are not plain-text, how they would be supported. Even markdown-based notetakings struggle with block refs.

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