about this platform

alex 10th May 2024 at 2:16am

This website is built upon TiddlyWiki,

a unique non-linear notebook for capturing, organising and sharing complex information

in a rather unique setup that allows me to have a local instance running on NodeJS — which I access and edit like any regular TiddlyWiki instance — and a public page — which you see right now — that is rendered using a rather convoluted process.

paogarden arises out of a need of archival, and trying to make sense of information: the currency of this day and age. I naturally come across many pieces of knowledge which I'd like to revisit at a later stage, or have readily available whenever needed. With time, I became aware of the Zettelkasten method of organising information, and the complementary How To Take Smart Notes (for a brief understanding of Zettelkasten, here's a quick resource. I don't necessarily follow these practices for now, but would eventually aspire to integrate it as a foundation for my knowledge work.

There are plenty of tools that digitally emulate the analogue Zettelkasten – Emacs' Org Mode and Obsidian, for example – and many of these I tried myself. I finally settled on TiddlyWiki as it is, by default, a highly customisable platform accessible via HTTP protocols (ie. an internet browser), solving, at once, the issue of having a back-end server (where information is stored) and a front-end (where information is presented).

I call it the paogarden. It leans on my awe towards other sprawling, very unique websites like this and this.