1.2 KiB
1.2 KiB
A Flow is a node; Source/Sink clouds are materialised nodes
Part of meadows · see DESIGN.md.
In the domain Model, a Flow is a node carrying source and target
references (each to a Stock or Cloud), not an edge. The pipe you see is rendered
from those references. The Source/Sink boundary is a materialised Cloud
node, so every Flow connects node→node uniformly — no null ends.
We rejected modelling a Flow as an edge (it breaks "an Information Link targets a
Flow," since edges can't be edge endpoints, and it muddies the simulator) and
rejected null-ended flows (special-casing in every graph walk and in rendering).
Consequences
- The only stored edge type is the Information Link. Flows and Clouds are nodes. A reader seeing a "node that renders as a pipe" and "phantom cloud nodes" should look here.
- Cloud lifecycle must be auto-managed: spawn a Cloud when a Flow is left open-ended; remove it when the Flow attaches to a Stock; never leave orphans.
- Loop detection and the future simulator both walk a uniform node graph (info-links + flow→stock edges), with no boundary special cases.