Labels versus wires

Connectome-fs exists because path strings are a bad identity. Hierarchy is a navigation slice people understand. The graph — nodes, typed associations, editions — is where meaning and dependency should live.

HCI Nerdz names the same mistake for the public web and multi-repo DevX as Labels versus wires: canonical URLs are for human convenience; they must not be the only functional wire. People feel the symptom (rename/URL rot) first; this page sits with the diagnosis/treatment face.

The shared claim

Surface Mistake

Today’s web / docs

Baking https://…/old-path into sibling READMEs so a rename becomes archaeology

File-tree VCS

Treating a path as the feature, so unrelated hunks collide and renames look like delete+add

Connectome model

Fixing that by addressing nodes (GUID / content / semantic units) and edges, with paths as projections
A human-readable path label points to stable content identity, which carries semantic relationships

Stack (with HCI Nerdz)

  1. Content-addressed identity — same bytes (or same semantic unit) keep a stable id when the label moves: \(Hash(Bytes_{old}) = Hash(Bytes_{new})\)

  2. Mutable pointer — human name resolves to the current edition / hash when content updates (\(Hash(Bytes_{v1}) \neq Hash(Bytes_{v2})\))

  3. Reverse consumers — who still holds a label (CONSUMERS.md today; graph reverse edges tomorrow)

  4. Absorb layer — redirects and aliases on the classical web

Full analysis, Mermaid stack diagrams, and the CONSUMERS.md shape: HCI Nerdz — An alternative to URLs (Labels versus wires).

Systems-altitude umbrella (orient altitudes; deep-link here for treatment detail): Internet Reliability @ DevCentr.

Correspondence and media that only the host can search (host-held history) belong in the same portability story: Provider search and mirror backups · HCI — Host-held history. Substrate note: attachment bytes and issue bodies should remain addressable as content nodes, not only as forge CDN URLs.

Paired faces:

Where NDN fits (and does not)

Named Data Networking improves delivery: fetch by name without host IP coupling. It does not manage the semantic life cycle of application labels. Connectome-fs and the HCI Nerdz proposal stay on the application / association plane — complementary in UX, orthogonal in layering. See also Semantic change units (Unison, feature nodes, auto-forward).

Near-term for this repo

  • Prefer node ids and typed edges in the model; treat vendor paths as compatibility projections (Compatibility projection)

  • When publishing docs URLs that other projects will cite, maintain reverse consumers or hub xref: links

  • Keep human paths readable; stop pretending they are the only cite target