This folder contains design notes, drafts, exploration reports, and other (often point-in-time) records produced during the process of developing IPLD.
Note that this directory and its contents are not published in the website.
Content here is "as-is" and generally non-definitive. It's meant to be an active working area more so than limited to only contain polished results.
Some of this material may represent works-in-progress; others have become historical. (We do not attempt to differentiate these in advance, because it's only in retrospect that it becomes clear whether an idea is going somewhere, or not!)
We sometimes put content here for archival reference; but also, we some of these directories are meant to encourage writing things down -- even (and especially) new ideas.
One trait that's unified across files within this directory is that we treat them as (roughly) append-only. This is because we want to use them as touchpoints in discussion, and not as the discussion format itself.
Therefore, if you encounter a document in the notebook directory that you think needs substantial iteration and new content, the way to move forward is:
- gather your ideas and start writing
- prepare to create a new file
- commit and share your notes, linking to existing content where you can.
If you don't have push access to this repository, or want to start writing and sharing even earlier iterations of thoughts, GitHub Gists are also a great way to handle this style of editing. This directory can be thought of roughly like a collection of gists; we've just gathered the ones especially relevant to the evolution of the design of IPLD.
See the fine FAQ.