Just a work in progress with a few example packages to help flush out api design.
Decisions
Scope
Which operations / concepts are essential and belong in the core?
(DOM api parallels?)
Edge schema
From/to? Source/target? Unnamed?
edge = {from: 'one', to: 'two', id: 'e1', directed: true}
edge = {source: 'one', target: 'two', id: 'e1', directed: true}
edge = ['one', 'two', {id: e1, directed: true}]
Wrapped or unwrapped components?
let graph = lnkd({nodes: [{id: 'one'}]});
let one = graph.get('one'); // one is a proxy that ties POJO to graph
let edges = one.edges();
VS
let graph = lnkd({nodes: [{id: 'one'}]});
let one = graph.get('one'); // one is just a POJO {id: 'one'}
let edges = graph.edges(one);
Node / edge manipulation
Do we allow the underlying node and edge data to be manipulated directly? Or do we force everything to happen through a helper?
Is it possible to support direct manipulation and incremental indexing?
Selections
What do we call the result of graph.find(selector)? selection/collection/context?
Can we unify selections and subgraphs? How about single component wrappers?
// can these all share a single api? should they?
graph.find(':after(1999)') // includes nodes and edges
graph.find('[age>100]') // includes nodes
graph.get('kumu') // includes single node
Plugin implementation / registration
// Self-registration
import lnkd from 'lnkd';
lnkd.fn.find = (selector) {
// this <> graph
}
let graph = lnkd(...);
graph.find(selector);
VS
// End user responsible for passing graph to everything. No real graph api.
import lnkd from 'lnkd';
export function find(graph, selector) {
}
let graph = lnkd(...);
let selection = find(graph, selector);
VS
// Plugins defined as pure functions but attached to graph api elsewhere.
export function find(graph, selector) { }
---
import lnkd from 'lnkd';
// registration independent from definition
lnkd.use('find', require('./plugins/find'));
let graph = lnkd(...);
graph.find(selector);
Isolation
- When is structure shared between graphs?
- When are properties shared between graphs?
- What do we use when we want fully isolated copies? (graph.clone() vs graph.copy()?)
Performance
How concerned are we about fast insertion/removal times? Lookups?
Should we have built-in field indexing? Or is edge indexing enough?