Creating data structures in Flow

[samay-v]

With primitive data types and the ability to create expressions in place, the next step towards making Flow understand data better is to introduce a way to create complex data structures.

To do so we've introduced 4 Abstract data types:

1. List
2. Tuple
3. Record
4. Map

You can read more about them here

Combining both abstract and primitive data types you can represent anything in the world. And to give you the ability to do so, we're looking to create a smart Abstract Data Editor (ADE).

Proposal

The following is what we think should become the ADE. This is the first prototype and you're seeing this even before most of the internal team does. If you have any thoughts or feedback for it, we'd be very interested to know and will be more likely to iterate over it.

So leave your thoughts in this discussion!

Abstract Data Editor (ADE)

ADE will be exposed in the Flow as a block, perhaps by the name of "Structure Data". It'll let you open a modal in which you can create structured abstract data via the editor.

The ADE is aimed to help you create complicated data structures with relative ease. It'll use an open text editor-ish surface to let you freely chalk out how your data should look like. Indentation will be how you understand parent-child relationships, like other data serialisation languages use. But flow has the added advantage of using more than just the text dimension. With icons, chips and the smart suggest, we're hoping to make the experience of creating data structures more intuitive and delightful.

The ADE will use the same suggestion input style of the expression and guides you through creating the structure you want.

And best of all, you can use expressions inside of the editor. Which means you can't only add the input the block received as an element to the structure, but also operate on it right there in the structure.