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Is digital garden a creation/curation style, design pattern, or an arcgitecture that fits some platforms better than others? Thoughts

@tomcritchlow

@Mappletons

etc? I covered static sites in my text renaissance post but not digital gardens since I don’t yet have a sense of it

1/ I've been thinking of it very much as a pattern language centred around the core ethos of non-chronoloigcal WIP microposts. Layered with a pick n' mix set of common design patterns; Wikis Unsorted piles Exploratory node graph Internal Bi-directional links

2/ External Bi-directional links (web mentions) Invitiations to collaborate (edit buttons, quick links to tweet backs) Annotation a la

@hypothes_is

Heavy reposts, citations, credits, & references Changelogs (or alternatively, complete chronological abstinence)

3/ You pick the patterns that best fit your content General experimentation with the medium of the web feels like it has a strong role here too. Resurgence of playful, weird CSS. Tools like

@mdx_js

reducing friction for mixing interactive elements into text.

4/ So far SSG's like

, Next.js, (and whatever magic

@chrisbiscardi

is building ;)), are the best medium for the R&D efforts of the Twittering Digital Gardeners Association™️ Once we settle into a few design patterns that work well for the majority...

joel

@jhooks

May 30, 2020

For me the notion of the “digital garden” is a metaphor on the work more than any sort of technical implementation or specification. The fight against entropy. The personality and character of the gardener reflected in the garden. Community gardening. 🌱

joel

@jhooks

May 30, 2020

The layout of the garden, the composition of the soil, the tools in the shed aren’t as important as the work being done and the outcomes the garden achieves for the gardener and those they choose to share it with.

Tom Critchlow

@tomcritchlow

May 30, 2020

I believe two things: 1) digital gardens is a philosophy and should be full of weird and varied formats. And 2) the time is right for an easy general purpose garden platform

Replying to

Agreed on 'the garden fits the gardener' ethos

@jhooks

. Hate that the bar to entry ends up being full-on modern JS developement if you do want to get truly weird and experimental though. Sucks to have a garden you can't move the pots around in.

6:48 PM · May 30, 2020TweetDeck

Replying to

Working on this 🙏 cc

Curious to see where this goes. Do this right and I think Gatsby could replace WordPress as the publishing stack of choice for the web

Mike Tannenbaum (he/him)

Replying to

Semi unrelated but the “gardening” part of digital gardens doesn’t feel like the right lexicon for me. In gardens you know what you’re growing, and tend to them with an expected outcome. This trend of digital gardens is about discovery and entering the unknown. Right?

joel

@jhooks

May 30, 2020

Depends. Plant propagation, selective breeding, etc might be considered analogous to that sort of exploration. Possible motivations and intent of the gardener are vast and contextual.

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