FlowingData Forums » your.flowingdata

Data Constants

Started 2 months ago by aantn / 3 posts

  1. First off, I've been looking for a way of logging personal data for a long time. I was going to use Google Document's forms, but YFD looks like it'll be a lot easier to use on the go from my iPod. The data analysis tools also have gotten me excited.

    Thank you.

    I have one feature request: I'd love to be able to use predefined constants that can be substituted for a numerical value. Some example usecases:
    apple = 91 calories
    urgent = 10 (e.g. for tracking diarrhea)
    mild = 1 (e.g. tracking pain)

    Ultimately, it would be great if constants such as "apple" could be substituted for different values based on the context. For example:
    apple = 91 calories
    apple = 273 mg fat
    (Or if nutritional information could be automatically pulled from Wolfram Alpha.)

    I know that everything I mentioned can be done by downloading the csv data (thanks, btw) and manipulating it yourself, but it would be great if yfd provided an extensible platform for doing so as well. Do you have any plans to open (source) the platform?

  2. Okay, I think I'm getting better with YFD terminology: I'd like to be able to define relationships between various units.

    For example, the unit apple might be equal to any of the following depending on the context:
    apple = 91 cal
    apple = 273 mgFat

  3. I'm just finishing reading all these forum posts. I'm brand new to YFD, but this sort of functionality (and considering aantn's point), you may find it easiest to have a table of your own and merge YFD data with that based on the categories/tags/etc. you use.

    Of course, it seems that YFD could do this, but the amount of data to consider like this, and to generalize something like that could be a lot of work for a little benefit.

    The merging thing should help. And reading this actually helps me consider how to solve some problems that I can see that I'll have, where I want to know more than what YFD can log and tell me.


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