[PREV - HYPERART] [TOP]
EXAMPLES
mid-80s Additional: 3/00
Some more examples of uses for hypertext:
Gnu emacs "info mode" is Even more trivial
somewhat similar to this examples: Indexes. Tables
kind of trivial hypertext. of Contents. Footnotes.
"M-x help i" shows HYPERGNU "See note on page blah",
you a menu, where "as shown in Figure 3",
subheadings are indicated "for a review, see Ref
with an asterix in the 3". Ted Nelson makes the
first column. You can point that all literature
wander around in the docs is hypertext. With
however you like, rather computers we can take it
than reading through it to a new extreme.
sequentially.
Another example:
The usenet LIES
The newsgroup about "drwho" There is no one correct
could logically be put in hierarchy to organize
several different places in information.
the usenet hierarchy:
rec.arts.sf.drwho A point I believe
rec.arts.tv.drwho "object-oriented"
soc.culture.british.drwho folks are also now
re-discovering.
Is it technically so
difficult for the same file
to have several different (No, that's called a symlink.
paths pointing to it? How that would work with
CNEWS or BNEWS or whatever,
One newsgroup could then that's a different questions.)
be put in several places
in the hierarchy without
any penalties in excess
storage.
And how about program development? Modern disk files are
You always wind up with multiple only one step above tape
versions of programs, sometimes with storage: Files may be
only minor changes made between versions. random, but each one is a
Xanalogical storage makes it easier to linear chain of bytes.
keep all of these on line: you don't
need to re-save the entire program
each time. Only the changes, and links The solution that's largely in
to indicate where they go, need be saved. use: hack version control systems
that work on top of the
hierarchical file system
(RCS, CVS, M-O-U-S-E...).
In a Xanalogical system,
you can also have links
to sample input and There have been attempts at
output files from each integrating versioning
version of the software, into the file system
not to mention comment (e.g. TOPS-20), but they
links to "sticky notes", seem to have faded...
or even into the specs or
the rough documentation.
But okay, so you've saved
some sample output runs
for each version of the
program? That could eat
up some disk space as
well: the output might
be very long, and each
file might be very
similar, BUT because they
don't actually descend
from some original Unless... you had a
prototype, Xanalogical utility that could
storage wouldn't help. "xanify" data: give it a
bunch of files to
process, and it looks for
regions of similarity and
tries to compress them.
Of course, the Xanadu
folks may be building
some sort of "garbage
collection" routines like
this into the back end...
Something like this would
be great for compressing net
news, turning the existing
postings full of repetitous
quotations of other postings
into neat Xanadu transclusion
links.
Other examples? Perhaps MARGINAL?
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