Yzz

Yzz is a domain model of Ted Nelson's Zz structures.

Usage

The following usage example takes use of y_support/name_magic features. Please install y_support gem before trying yzz.

  require 'yzz'
  require 'y_support/name_magic'

  # Let's make a new class and imbue it with Yzz quality.
  #
  class Cell
    include Yzz, NameMagic
    def to_s
      name ? name.to_s : "#<Cell: #{connections.size} conn.>"
    end
  end

  # Let's now create 6 new ZZ cells.
  A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3 = 6.times.map { Cell.new }

  # And let's connect them along :x and :y dimensions:
  A1.along( :x ) >> A2 >> A3
  B1.along( :x ) >> B2 >> B3
  A1.along( :y ) >> B1
  A2.along( :y ) >> B2
  A3.along( :y ) >> B3

  # The resulting ZZ structure looks like this:
  #
  #   a1 --> a2 --> a3
  #   |      |      |
  #   |      |      |
  #   v      v      v
  #   b1 --> b2 --> b3
  #
  # It looks a bit like a small spreadsheet 3×2.

  # We can now explore this structure:
  A1.neighbors # returns all the neighbors of A1
  #=> [A2, B1]
  A1.towards A2 # returns all the sides of A1 facing A2
  # (note that A1 and A2 can be neighbors along more than one dimension)
  #=> [#<Yzz::Side: A1 along x, posward>]
  A1.tw A2 # instead of "towards", we can just say "tw"
  #=> x->
  A1.tw B1
  #=> y->

  # Of course, more complicated Zz structures can be created. See the online
  # presentation at xanadu.com for more ( http://xanadu.com/zigzag/ ). For
  # a small example here, let's create 2 diagonal connections:

  A1.along( :diagonal ) >> B2
  A2.along( :diagonal ) >> B3
  A1.tw B2
  #=> diagonal->
  A1.neighbors
  #=> [A2, B1, B2]

Again, the concern of yzz gem is to only provide the structure itself, rather than a comprehensive interface for interaction, visualization and other possible tasks. For these, you may check y_nelson gem.

Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request