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B-Trees and Database Indexes

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Re: B-Trees and Database Indexes

#6

Post by egwynn »

eclectic29 wrote: post #5
VeejayRampay wrote: post #3

beautiful interactive visualizations, this is top shelf in terms of pedagogy and vulgarization

Slightly off topic: Learnt a new word today 'vulgarization' which seems to have a completely different meaning from the obvious. Thanks.

Note that, in the abstract, “vulgar” means “common” (as in “vulgar latin”). Indeed, its negative connotations come from that same sense: “common” people are unrefined.

Re: B-Trees and Database Indexes

#7

Post by hinkley »

egwynn wrote: post #6
eclectic29 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off topic: Learnt a new word today 'vulgarization' which seems to have a completely different meaning from the obvious. Thanks.

Note that, in the abstract, “vulgar” means “common” (as in “vulgar latin”). Indeed, its negative connotations come from that same sense: “common” people are unrefined.

The association between vulgarity and propriety (and class distinctions) sort of ruins that word, particularly in the english speaking west.

I wonder if that's as big of a problem in the romance languages (which all treat left/right the same way - left = bad, right = good)

Re: B-Trees and Database Indexes

#8

Post by hinkley »

I realized after a few years of doing it that my strategy for keeping Wikis useful is to treat them as B-Trees.

When the landing page gets too full/too many outgoing links, I start pushing links and paragraphs down into the child pages, to leave space for a fair share of timely links and on-boarding docs.

Similar and older links get pushed down into the sibling that best represents the topic. Then if the destination page is now too big, similar and older links get pushed down to their children. Eventually all of the outdated docs are three levels down from the landing page, where only historians and experts will see them. And sometimes as we finally decide how part of the system really should work, siblings get combined into one page, minus the speculative work that gets pushed down deeper in the tree. It works remarkably well. At the end of the day documentation is a search problem.

I highly recommend it for a Friday afternoon exercise when you want to be productive but you know starting a new task is a complete waste of time.

Re: B-Trees and Database Indexes

#9

Post by jjgreen »

hinkley wrote: post #7
egwynn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that, in the abstract, “vulgar” means “common” (as in “vulgar latin”). Indeed, its negative connotations come from that same sense: “common” people are unrefined.

The association between vulgarity and propriety (and class distinctions) sort of ruins that word, particularly in the english speaking west. I wonder if that's as big of a problem in the romance languages (which all treat left/right the same way - left = bad, right = good)

Indeed: are you sinister or dexterous?

Re: B-Trees and Database Indexes

#10

Post by caseyohara »

hinkley wrote: post #8

I realized after a few years of doing it that my strategy for keeping Wikis useful is to treat them as B-Trees. When the landing page gets too full/too many outgoing links, I start pushing links and paragraphs down into the child pages, to leave space for a fair share of timely links and on-boarding docs. Similar and older links get pushed down into the sibling that best represents the topic. Then if the destination…

Do you have a recommendation for Wiki software you like to use? My team is in need of an internal knowledge base, and I like the structure of wikis. Most of the SaaS products I've tried or looked at are a bit too shiny/fancy and don't seem to match my mental model of how a wiki-style knowledge base should work.
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