Can Hook links be reverse-engineered? Is there some way to extract information from the database? I’m concerned about whether Hook connections will be accessible in 10-25 years, and beyond?
Possibly you intend to keep developing Hook for that long and longer, but many developers of now-defunct apps would have said the same.
Thanks for asking @MitchWagner. Hook was conceived from day 1 with addressing these concerns in mind–hence the multiple ways in which it does. (We have roots in the UNIX realm. We recall that the success of Apple was partly due to its roots in that world and would like Apple itself not to forget it). We @ CogSci Apps Corp. have spoken to this in Openness – Hook. You’ll notice that there are different ways to get data in and out of Hook. External devs (e.g., @ttscoff) are already making use of Hook automation. Additional answers are in that document. And we intend to add to that in the future too to address more contingencies (like take-overs). Our own research, that of our growing network of research collaborators, and others also leverage Hook – research needs to be timeless.
Interesting. Thank you. It certainly seems that you have gone about as far with regard to future proofing as it is possible to go.
The one type of link that seems dangerous is the link to a document in the finder, and there does not seem to be any way around that. Sure, a person can use the full path link instead, but future proofing means that the person can never move that document to another folder – not tomorrow, and next year, and not in 25 years.
Although I’m the public representative of the company, we are not just one person but a corporation with several members, distributed geographically in Canada. We have multiple highly successful advisors (including some help from SFUVentureLabs) and a very promising product road map, the beginnings of which early adopters have already seen unfold. The “Sci” in CogSci Apps is a nod to the fact that our products stem from serious research and is meant to support serious research. There are countless examples of commercially viable research tools. We feel that Hook is a great example of that. I myself have multiple research projects with multiple teams of researchers. My view of integrative cognitive science and education research in which I participate is that it is not sufficient to just do research and pontificate about learning/education. One ought to have activities outside of academia that test, demonstrate and help refine one’s theorizing. Hook has become inscribed in multiple research programmes, which substantiates our commitment. Wording will need to be added to the document to make it clear that CogSci Apps Corp. would not allow the product’s functionality to become unavailable, and would rather make it (at least key aspects) open source. That’s the spirit of it. The company’s position is that momentum and buy in of the tool have put it over a critical threshold.