I've passed on that love for books to my children. They are just as much book lovers. My children always enjoy a trip to the library in Leerdam. As soon as we step inside, they head straight for the corner for their age group, looking for their next adventure to get lost in.
We also had a small library at home. For example, we had a whole row of Suske & Wiske comic books. I read these multiple times, rereading my favorites every vacation. Nowadays, they are on the bookshelf in the living room, and my children read them again and again. The circle is complete.
Puzzle books
Besides books, I was also crazy about puzzle books: word searches, Swedish puzzles, crosswords, you name it. And my children love these too. They come along on every vacation, along with the necessary pens, pencils, and felt-tip markers. Unlike books, these practically beg to be worked on, to be filled in, and to be solved.
Books in libraries can be read by everyone and are the same for everyone. Puzzle books are not suitable for this, even if you fill them in with pencil. Because they are modified by the user, you can't lend them out again to someone else. Someone else could erase the answers or overwrite them with a pen without the first person knowing.
The Blueriq library
The idea of a library – where a set of books only needs to be bought once so that a large group of people can all use that set of books – doesn't just work with paper or digital books. The principle can also be applied to building applications with Blueriq.
In Blueriq, you also have access to libraries, the so-called libraries. You can use an external library, like that library in Leerdam, or the internal library, like the home library. The external library is like the library in Leerdam: a central collection (in this case of models, components, functionalities, and/or definitions) that many people can use. But you cannot and are not allowed to add books to it.
It's different with the internal library, like the bookcase in the living room with the Suske en Wiske comics. You can and are allowed to expand this bookcase yourself with new books. You build your own collection of reusable components that fit your application or solution.
Just like in a real library, the Blueriq libraries are also not suitable for including puzzle books. In software terms, puzzle books can be seen as components or models that depend on specific user modifications. There's a high chance that someone will change something without another person noticing – resulting in bugs or unforeseen consequences.
Whether you choose external or internal libraries, the concept works because books in both libraries can be read by everyone and are the same for everyone. It works because the content doesn't change. The book remains the same book for every reader (provided you keep them intact, but that's beside the point). And that's precisely why it's important not to put 'puzzle books' in your libraries. So always choose reading books in your libraries and not puzzle books. Let's save those for vacation.
