"bind" query

[decibelcooper]

Hey @jsccast I hope all is well. I've got another thought to run past you.

I don't want to bloat rulio unnecessarily with a huge feature set, but I am on a minor mission to deemphasize the use of javascript blocks in rules. The next suggestion I have along this line of thought is to introduce a new query type called bind. This would be a query that simply takes a JSON map and produces bindings from it, while replacing ?existing_binding with the existing binding value.

Very often we have the need to "transform" a data structure, or bind things conditionally. Today, we jump into JS to do that. With this bind query, hopefully we can avoid the JS and make things more readable.

What do you think?

[jsccast]

Intriguing.

I actually like the idea of distilling a more declarative query type. As usual, the challenge is striking a balance among simplicity, ease of use, and expressiveness. Having Javascript as a last resort can provide some comfort for that last dimension.

How would you feeling about sketching some rough documentation for your proposed thing? Just something that indicates what it is and how it'd work -- with a couple of examples. If you're game, using this issue for that discussion seems reasonable.