As a user of both Drummer and
Roam, I struggle to see the utility of interop between the two because....
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- A difference between Roam (and Logseq), which I use, and Drummer, which I also use, is that Roam visually begins as a blank sheet of paper and its outlining is not obvious. Nothing in Drummer looks like a blank sheet of paper, the outline structure is readily apparent on the screen and in the menu structure. In Drummer related topics are "linked" together via a top-down tree structure shown all on one page where as in Roam related topics are hyperlinked together, but following the link replaces one page with another page and the result can be loss of context. In Drummer terms, Roam defaults to Hoist for everything. #
- An outline might be a noun or a verb, and when it is a verb it is a process. The process that most programmers perform to write programs is the outline process, or outlining, they just don't know it as such. To abstract this thought further, outlining is a troubleshooting, or in computer terms, debugging, process. Another way to think of it, outlining is a process of breaking down a complex topic into more easily understood terms that can help one understand the topic better, and in this way outlining is the process of thought and in that manner an outliner is a tool that can be used in the thought process, aka a tool for thought.#
- In my opinion context is the missing component to Roam, Logseq, and Obsidian as a thinking tool. If I am to go to a computer tool to help think through a problem or work up a new idea I am going to reach for an outliner like Drummer over Roam because I want to start with the big (complex) picture and drill down to its component parts. The only other tools I've personally use that comes close to an outliner is Federated Wiki and it's left/right story lineup, which provides context in a manner similar to Drummer, and mindmaps.#