10 // Formable Data

Remember Formable’s current home page? It touches on the main ideas behind the product. One of them is “Formable Data”. I wrote a bit about it today and want to share this draft with you. Any feedback is welcome!

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Formable Data
User programmable graph database

Formability. Schemalessness. Everything is the same type.

Formable tools need a formable data model. 

Most apps built today are made for a very narrow domain. A note taking app for example might have a database schema that allows for notes being saved. If that same app wants to support calendar events at some point, the data model would have to be updated to support calendar events. A software developer would do that. 

Formable isn’t tied to such specific use cases and you don’t have to write code to support a new one.  

Undirected Graph

Formable promises: “Store information the same way you think about it: as a network.”

So one can enter any piece of information. The missing piece for that to be a network are the links between those items. 

With everything being simplified to nodes and edges, one can link any event, note, or email to any person, todo item, …

Even two areas of your system that aren’t naturally connected and seem far apart, like your projects at work and your personal journal, can be linked together. 

Formable doesn’t try to mimic your physical workspace. Computers can do more than just bring the desktop, folders and files onto a screen. It’s time to ditch the limitations of the file cabinet. 

Querying your data

Having all your data connected in such a way allows you to do nice visualizations and to browse from one block to another, but where it gets really powerful is Formable’s querying functionality.

The retrieval process of our information is just as important as how we get it into our computers. 

Formable lets you query any sub graph of your data in view it in the most suitable way. (more on Formable views in a separate text).

Want all your journal entries? No problem. Want all your journal entries where you write about your health? No problem. Last month’s meeting notes of all meetings David attended? No problem, as long as there is a path between your blocks of information.

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Have a wonderful week!