4 ms·

> Tana, Capacities, Bear, Lgseq all have backlinks and other stuff from Roam for years now or so, thanks to Roam IMO. I wish they were able to make some good mo

> Tana, Capacities, Bear, Lgseq all have backlinks and other stuff from Roam for years now or so, thanks to Roam IMO. I wish they were able to make some good money from this innovation I debunked this myth on the prior discussion in 2022. Backlinks were a well-known idea in the wiki community, to the point that they were part of WikiMatrix, and it's almost certainly the case that Roam copied the idea. TiddlyWiki had backlinks at least as early as 2006. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30330835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30330835

dalmo3 1y ago
I'm surprised to this day everyone still focuses on backlinks. For me Roam's killer feature was transclusion. When they launched, no one else had it. I could write all my notes in the daily notes and still have a sufficiently-well-organised knowledge base for specific subjects, tasks, projects. These days I use obsidian for the simplicity/portability of .md.
- bachmeier 1y ago
  > For me Roam's killer feature was transclusion. When they launched, no one else had it. Roam also copied the idea of transclusion. I'm not sure who is included in "no one else" but Wikipedia's had it pretty much from the beginning. See this page from 2005[1] The term was coined in a book in 1980[2]. This page from 2007[3] says "...CvWiki, developed in 1997 by Peter Merel, which was the first Wiki clone to have functioning transclusion, backlinks and WayBackMode." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Transclusion_costs_and_benefits&oldid=12339806 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Transcl... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transclusion#History_and_implementation_by_Project_Xanadu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transclusion#History_and_imple... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_wikis&oldid=163780839 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_wikis&...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - dalmo3 1y ago
    Thanks for the history lesson, I guess, but that's extremely pedantic. No one ever said Roam invented transclusion. I'm talking in the practical sense here. It's hard to take you seriously when you mention Wikipedia in the context of personal note taking apps.
    - detaro 1y ago
      Why? Using a wiki to take notes is not a particularly weird or novel idea.

dalmo3 1y ago

I'm surprised to this day everyone still focuses on backlinks. For me Roam's killer feature was transclusion. When they launched, no one else had it. I could write all my notes in the daily notes and still have a sufficiently-well-organised knowledge base for specific subjects, tasks, projects. These days I use obsidian for the simplicity/portability of .md.

bachmeier 1y ago
> For me Roam's killer feature was transclusion. When they launched, no one else had it. Roam also copied the idea of transclusion. I'm not sure who is included in "no one else" but Wikipedia's had it pretty much from the beginning. See this page from 2005[1] The term was coined in a book in 1980[2]. This page from 2007[3] says "...CvWiki, developed in 1997 by Peter Merel, which was the first Wiki clone to have functioning transclusion, backlinks and WayBackMode." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Transclusion_costs_and_benefits&oldid=12339806 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Transcl... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transclusion#History_and_implementation_by_Project_Xanadu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transclusion#History_and_imple... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_wikis&oldid=163780839 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_wikis&...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- dalmo3 1y ago
  Thanks for the history lesson, I guess, but that's extremely pedantic. No one ever said Roam invented transclusion. I'm talking in the practical sense here. It's hard to take you seriously when you mention Wikipedia in the context of personal note taking apps.
  - detaro 1y ago
    Why? Using a wiki to take notes is not a particularly weird or novel idea.