As I wrote, @PaulWalters: I think we need to know, understand and be able to explain why and how Tinderbox can support our thinking process. As long as I have been following this as well as the old forum I really learned a lot about the techniques and different approaches of how to incorporate certain display/view options etc. I really like this and benefitted a lot from that.
But from time to time there are discussion like this one here arising that really never actually seem (!) to lead us anywhere.
So asking @eastgate for sharing his experience what it has been like to be in the arena and discuss with non-Tinderboxer advantages and disadvantages of QDA-Approaches etc … seems to me/be a rather interesting starting point, don’t you @PaulWalters?
But following your call, @PaulWalters: For me Tinderbox is a Tool unlike any other tool that really is agnostic to all the frameworks other tools offers due to one good reason: At the very beginning – no one knows one thing … and yet has to start somehow - somewhere. This “somehow-somewhere”-spot for me often is: Tinderbox. And even further: Sometimes Tinderbox is the dojo to unleash myself from where I got stock in more strictly framed environments such as Outliners or Mindmappers. I really like Tinderbox being a remedium, a remedy – so to speak – in this respect.
A - Data in
That said: There comes a time through such work where I really need to bring in some resources that aren’t always available as neatly formatted CSVs. So in such moments a deep integration with Devonthink or Airtable seems unavoidable in order to bring the data in. But then one starts to not only look at the data brought in but wants to work with it … and here I do agree with @Desalegn: Not being able to really touch (that is: tag, annotate) the data in Tinderbox is a hindrance.
B - Data out
And then time and again we find statements like this one. I think those aspects like not being able to grasp how to export things immediately is nothing that boosts creativity but much rather tends to get in the way. Having software that is – here and there – rough around the edges really isn’t the problem. An aspect, however, others might even call a problem is, when Tinderboxing in the end means something like: Yeah, there are actually good and easy solutions for certain aspects (let’s keep calling them “Exporting Files”) but every one has to either figure them out for oneself or has to search the forum. This is the point where people start to wonder whether they’ve gotten into a Linux suburb where every good IT-gardener of course has compiled her or his own kernel.
Pointe
Tinderbox is a Thinker’s Tool …
- But it often confronts the Thinker with problems that really shouldn’t be problems anymore (since they have been discussed and solved already without being easily retrievable), namely:
- bringing data in to be mingled with the ab-ovo-thoughts instantiated or incubated in Tinderbox
- and then again, after having finished the “Thinking” in Tinderbox, getting data out
Getting answers to these question by no means will compromises anyone’s creativity but rather assures to eventually getting things done, over and over again.
Does this, @PaulWalters, can count as start for a discussion I envisioned with my last post over here?