Infra: structure all the way down: structured data as a visual programming language

Abstract

We present Infra, a new baseline medium for representing data. With Infra, arbitrarily-complex structured data can be encoded, viewed, edited, and processed, all while remaining in an efficient non-textual form. It is suitable for the full range of information modalities, from free-form input, to compact schema-conforming structures. With its own equivalent of a text editor and text-field widget, Infra is designed to target the domain currently dominated by flat character strings while simultaneously enabling the expression of sub-structure, inter-reference, dynamic dependencies, abstraction, computation, and context (metadata).