DryMind

Tiddlywiki - An exit interview

Fair warning: This is not a takedown. I am just explaining why to my particular use-case, Tiddlywiki is not a good fit anymore. In a way this is documentation of my Circle of Competence rather than limitation of Tiddlywiki. As a tool Tiddlywiki has persisted for 15+ years and earned praise from industry giants. So before dismissing it based on anyone's opinion, it would be only fair to give it a try.

On the other hand, I would ask the long-time Tiddlywiki users to stop and consider for a moment if Tiddlywiki is actually aiding expansion of their knowledge, or is it merely satisfying their urge to tinker with stuff. Also see Sunk Cost Fallacy.

For some years I have been noticing this pattern:

  • I forget why I stopped using TW5.
  • I restart using Tiddlywiki.
  • I realize why I stopped
  • I stop using TW5 again.

For this reason I am logging those reasons so I won't have to use my time and energy to rediscover them another couple of times.

  1. Tiddlywiki - Inability to scale

Usually if a tool fails to clear essential criteria of its category (See Note taking Apps - Criteria), I do not bother to look into it any further. Here I am making an exception, at least to document the rest of issues.

  1. Tiddlywiki - Extensibility issues
  2. Tiddlywiki - Issues with NodeJS flavor
  3. Tiddlywiki - Issues with HTML flavor
  4. Tiddlywiki - Issues with search
  5. Tiddlywiki - Issues with markup
  6. Tiddlywiki - Issues with UI, Community and the rest
  7. Tiddlywiki - Conclusion
Tiddlywiki - An exit interview