[ANN] Merb Mind Maps - a tutorial on RSpec, GraphViz & a little Merb

[Phlip]

Netizens:

Crispin & Gregory's new book, /Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and
Agile Teams/, has a kewt "mind map" at the start of each chapter. It inspired me
to find a way to use the "tag cloud" on a blog to draw a mind map of the posts,
linked by their tags in common.

The result is this little project:

http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/02/merb-mind-maps.html

It showcases...

- graph theory - including Minimum Spanning Tree
- GraphViz - to typeset the mind maps
- Merb - a Rails-style website platform
- Ruby - that annoying language that won't go away
- RSpec - a Behavior Driven Development system
- transparent PNG files with ImageMagick drop-shadows
- assert{ 2.0 } - an assertion that reflects its expressions
- assert{ xpath } - the latest version of my assert_xpath system
- TDD for algorithms & graph theory!
- fixture-dependencies - a Rails fixture clone with more features
- GraphvizR - a lite Ruby gem that wraps GraphViz dot notation
- and even a tiny bit of HAML!

The algorithm itself depends on none of those things, so any blog could use the
algorithm to present the mind-maps that are already latent within it!

[Alan Baljeu]

I like the concept Phlip, and it's impressive you can achieve that much with so little code. It also looks like a very useful way of presenting a collection of blog articles. Very helpful for someone trying to figure out where to go exploring an archive. So when are you going to substitute this for your blog's tag cloud?



Nevertheless, I must quarrel with your use of the term mind-map. Did Crispin and Gregory use this term? When I saw your letter, I was thinking, how could you /possibly/ make a mind map out of a collection of tags? When I saw the example I immediately thought, "oh! you mean concept graphs". Because to me, a concept graph is a collection of nodes, each containing a keyword, and linked by lines.

A mind map is what Tony Buzan invented, and what MindJet implemented (and many others copied): a radially drawn tree with a central concept fleshed out in increasing detail, with pictures and annotations to illustrate and clarify the concept.

Sorry to be pedantic, but I think it's a valuable distinction.

Alan Baljeu




________________________________
From: Phlip <phlip2005-***@public.gmane.org>


Netizens:

Crispin & Gregory's new book, /Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and
Agile Teams/, has a kewt "mind map" at the start of each chapter. It inspired me
to find a way to use the "tag cloud" on a blog to draw a mind map of the posts,
linked by their tags in common.

The result is this little project:

http://broadcast. oreilly.com/ 2009/02/merb- mind-maps. html

It showcases...

- graph theory - including Minimum Spanning Tree
- GraphViz - to typeset the mind maps
- Merb - a Rails-style website platform
- Ruby - that annoying language that won't go away
- RSpec - a Behavior Driven Development system
- transparent PNG files with ImageMagick drop-shadows
- assert{ 2.0 } - an assertion that reflects its expressions
- assert{ xpath } - the latest version of my assert_xpath system
- TDD for algorithms & graph theory!
- fixture-dependencie s - a Rails fixture clone with more features
- GraphvizR - a lite Ruby gem that wraps GraphViz dot notation
- and even a tiny bit of HAML!

The algorithm itself depends on none of those things, so any blog could use the
algorithm to present the mind-maps that are already latent within it!

_


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Phlip]

Post by Alan Baljeu
Nevertheless, I must quarrel with your use of the term mind-map.

It begins with M, making the title alliterative.

I myself quarrel with the use of "Merb" in the title. There's almost no Merb in
the content, and I only forced myself to use it because I personally needed to
learn it before it devours Rails.

Post by Alan Baljeu
Did Crispin and Gregory use this term?

If they did, would I be off the hook? That's "appeal to authority", you know...

Post by Alan Baljeu
When I saw your letter, I was
thinking, how could you /possibly/ make a mind map out of a collection
of tags?

Posts are the nodes, and tags-in-common are the edges. But...

Post by Alan Baljeu
When I saw the example I immediately thought, "oh! you mean
concept graphs". Because to me, a concept graph is a collection of
nodes, each containing a keyword, and linked by lines.
A mind map is what Tony Buzan invented, and what MindJet implemented
(and many others copied): a radially drawn tree with a central concept
fleshed out in increasing detail, with pictures and annotations to
illustrate and clarify the concept.

Point. I picked up "mind map" because it's a cool term I saw around the
interthing. There are two remaining issues:

- if you blog about your favorite topics (such as "sex", "drugs",
and "rock-n-roll"), then the links between your posts will
indeed map your mind

- I auditioned some GraphViz tools that display radial links out
from a root, but I couldn't briefly get them to look right
in a bloggable format

The "mind map" I learned in the 1970s might have gone under a different name. I
don't recall it - obviously. It's a classroom note taking technique looking like
this:

+-----------------
/ +----
/ /---/____
+---+------+--------
\
+---+-------
\_______

It's a side-ways outline on paper, formatted to make adding new callouts easy.
Maybe GraphViz can do that, but it should not require excess directives. I
wanted to avoid fun like "noderank".

Post by Alan Baljeu
Sorry to be pedantic, but I think it's a valuable distinction.

Distinct pedantry is where it's at!

[Alan Baljeu]

Post by Phlip
I myself quarrel with the use of "Merb" in the title. There's almost no Merb in
the content, and I only forced myself to use it because I personally needed to
learn it before it devours Rails.

So if you called it "Merb mind map" for alliteration, but Merb, mind, and map
are all misused words.... :-)

Post by Phlip

Post by Alan Baljeu
Did Crispin and Gregory use this term?

If they did, would I be off the hook? That's "appeal to authority", you know...

I just want to know if the problem is bigger than just one blog post.

Post by Phlip
- I auditioned some GraphViz tools that display radial links out
from a root, but I couldn't briefly get them to look right
in a bloggable format

The thing is, tags and articles represent an undirected cyclic graph, not a tree.
A mind map is supposed to be a tree.

Post by Phlip
The "mind map" I learned in the 1970s might have gone under a different name. I
don't recall it - obviously. It's a classroom note taking technique looking like
....

Ascii doesn't do it justice I think :-) Yes it is primarily a note taking technique.
It's also a medium for thinking and brainstorming.

-----
Thinking about the tag graph:

If you have one article with 4 tags, doesn't that lead to 4 interconnected links
between those tags? What do you do about that?

Alan


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[Phlip]

Post by Alan Baljeu
The thing is, tags and articles represent an undirected cyclic graph, not a tree.
A mind map is supposed to be a tree.

Read the post!

[Alan Baljeu]

Post by Phlip

Post by Alan Baljeu
The thing is, tags and articles represent an undirected cyclic graph, not a tree.
A mind map is supposed to be a tree.

Read the post!

Good idea! [reads] Okay, done.

So you're building a minimum spanning tree of articles, using
tag-difference as the metric, and setting the current article as
root.

You're right my impression from the initial picture mislead me.
So why is there a cycle there? Oh there isn't, it just looked
that way from how the graph got laid out.

Sorry about that.


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[Donaldson, John (GEO)]

Alan,

Post by Alan Baljeu
The thing is, tags and articles represent an undirected cyclic graph, not a tree.
A mind map is supposed to be a tree.

I think the original Buzan meaning wasnŽt so limited as this. Basically, itŽs a 2-D representation of something in your mind. So, it can be a whatever you can draw...

John D.