Maybe I'm missing something, but .. what problem is this solving?
https://www.mcmaster.com/screws/hex-head-screws/
or Digikey:
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/ceramic-capacitor...
or PCpartPicker:
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/
compared to trying to find the same products on Amazon or AliExpress. Many of the products are available, but every product on those examples can be filtered against comparable products by the specs that matter to the engineers doing the selection. On other sites, the metadata is generated inconsistently by individual sellers.
On Digi-Key I get absolutely lost. There are thousands of options, with different form factors, costs, availability, specs, and more. Can I buy 5 of them? What's the lead time? Is it SMD or through? How much is shipping? Which vendor do I choose?
On AliExpress, I get a bunch of "5 8-bit shift registers for electronics projects" listings, check a couple of them, look up some info, and purchase one in a few minutes.
Of course this means I end up with mediocre, sometimes outright broken parts, but it feels like it's worth the time I save. I wish there was a curated list or an "easy mode" on Digi-Key.
What I have done when I find myself with several similar items on digikey and am unable to make a choice, I will go with whatever has the biggest inventory, the assumption being whatever sells the best will probably be the best... or at least the most available, which is good enough for me.
For example "8 vit shit register" gives first link to SN74HC595B, a generic shift register and second link to parametric search
https://eu.mouser.com/c/semiconductors/logic-ics/counter-shi...
with "logic type=shift register" and "number of bits=8" already selected.
You don't even need to spell it correctly
Googling smartly is
> I wish there was a curated list or an "easy mode" on Digi-Key.
exactly what you want.
For example, here's how you'd find a generic through hole LED. Search for "through hole LED", pick a color, stocking option: in stock, sort by price, and pick whatever seems right for your project, making sure that you're not ordering something silly like 2500 LEDs (it'll be pretty obvious when you check out anyway). If there's something else that's relevant to your project (eg. the size or shape of the LED) then you can specify that.
The datasheet is just a click or two away to do a sanity check that you're ordering something that makes sense.
Obviously, for a generic component like a LED where the specs might not matter too much and it's fine if you get one of dubious quality, you can just get a random grab bag of LEDs off AliExpress. Or if the catalog overwhelms you, there's always Adafruit, SparkFun, Pololu, etc.
For ICs search Google for "<part description> breakout" which will often show you Sparkfun, Adafruit, or some other hacker focused shop/blog. For example, some results roughly ranked by obscurity: 8-bit shift register [1], thermocouple [2], air quality [3], CPLD [4], crosspoint switch [5].
For anything more complex than that - for example, a DLP micromirror device - you'll have to dig deeper and search for "<part description> dev kit". Manufacturers usually make dev kits using their flagship chips from which you can easily navigate related parts. Be prepared to spit your morning coffee out at some of the prices of this path though (i.e. aforementioned DLP dev kits are $1k+, easily twice what you'd pay for a DLP projector using the same chip)
I assume that's what your Amazon/Aliexpress searches have done by proxy (I often do use Amazon too for more basic stuff like relays, ESP8/32 etc. when I'm impatient)
[1] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10680
[2] https://www.adafruit.com/product/269
[3] https://www.adafruit.com/product/3566
[4] http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/XC9500XL_CPLD_breakout_b...
For example, the 74HC595 you linked is a super common shift register, but DK Canada has 88 listings for it. Some surface mount, some in different DIP configurations, and now I have to scour through and figure out the one variant that works for me.
Generalist sites like Amazon and AliExpress tend to mostly stock the variants that tinkerers/makers want when prototyping, which makes it easier for me to plop "74HC595" in the search bar and quickly get a sensible result, especially when sorting by amount sold.
About 25 years ago I built a series of calculators for a competing industrial supplier, where you could match up the bolt / screw / washer / nut needed for each size, metal vs wood application, etc. Still a very relevant need today that I've seldom seen replicated usefully on any site.
(You buy a product such as a bookcase. You then go and pick up one or more packages which make up that product. When you get the packages home and open them up, each contains several parts.)
There are lots of different systems at IKEA, which work somewhat in parallel but sometimes have to interoperate. For example, point of sale, returns, warehouse management, showroom design. Some of them care about all of product/package/part, but many of them care more about one of those levels than the other. Point of sale just needs to know what products you bought, not what parts are in the packages. Warehouse really cares about what packages there are, but also wants to be aware of which sets of packages are products.
Suppose that one system doesn't make a distinction between product and package, or uses 'product' to mean either product or package. That system might work perfectly fine on its own, but when it has to interact with another system which cares a lot about that categorical distinction, things will go wrong. So you want to have one place where all those concepts are defined. Then when you create a new system, you can confirm that you are using the same categories with the same meanings as everyone else.
Never seen someone noble savage programmers before.
I'm sure their metadata is great compared to some groups, but in my case it's still insufficient.
https://netflixtechblog.com/supporting-content-decision-make...
Having a well defined ontology helps power lots of data products, and even build new ones.
KGs in the general e-commerce space solve search disambiguation and bridging the gap of industry language with customer language; common sense recommendation, especially when more and more customers do not opt-in to sharing their data; and embeddable info box content throughout the customers browsing experience.
KG is not a technology but a paradigm shift from an application-centric data modeling (classic data engineering) to a business/purpose/people-centric data modeling. It means that on top of the data layer, the KG enables to access the data via business concepts. It enables e.g. simple questions like which products are suitable for customers that live in small apartments and automatically solves the problem of combining different data sources to answer the question.
Categories of products is a good example as they form a transitive relation, but not necessarily a strict hierarchy (any particular entity might be in multiple distinct categories).
When talking to their senior engineers, a common trope was:
> I wouldn't know, I've only worked here for 5 years.
The sheer volume of new hierarchies replacing old ones, teams being split into other reams, rebranding of departments ...
I doubt any one person understands how IKEA works, let alone enough to be a source for others.
Perhaps they are projecting onto their customers here.