Newsgroups: alt.cyberspace,alt.culture.internet,soc.history.science,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.icon,alt.hypertext,alt.wired
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From: Eastgate@world.std.com (Mark Bernstein)
Subject: Re: Letter From Ted Nelson
Message-ID: <DA83FK.AB8@world.std.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 16:35:44 GMT
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Bob Frankston sets the record straight on the history of speadsheet 
languages (thank you!), and then writes

>	Now to Hypertext and the Web. Hypertext systems have had a number of
>	precursors. There was also Andy Van Dam's work at Brown about 1970.

Absolutely true, but in this context it would be more just to note that 
Nelson and Van Dam were collaborators at this point. The other important 
prehistoric work was Doug Engelbart's NLS/Augment, somewhat earlier in 
inception but essentially contemporary.

>	But, to a large extent, hypertext has been about decomposing
>	documents. Cynically, I view as relieving the author of the
>	responsibility for the narrative thread.

This view is widely held (see Gelertner's recent essay in The National 
Review) but is insupportable. In brief:

- decomposition of existing, linear documents has been at most a minor 
concern in hypertext research and practice, both as reflected in the 
literature and in the design of influential and popular systems.

- The notion that hypertext relieves the author of responsibility for 
narrative coherence is not born out either by the journal/conference 
literature (cf. the essays by Moulthrop in Hypertext 91 and 93 and Bolter 
in Hypertext 87, also Landow's HYPERTEXT and Joyce's OF TWO MINDS).

- Narrative coherence, and the author's hand, are both very evident 
indeed in such well-known hypertexts at Moulthrop's VICTORY GARDEN, 
Douglas' I HAVE SAID NOTHING, Cramer's IN SMALL AND LARGE PIECES, and in 
Michael Joyce's pioneering work, AFTERNOON, A STORY.

- Much recent work in hypertext explores the rhetoric of argumentation 
and narrative in non-linear spaces. See especially David Kolb's recent 
SOCRATES IN THE LABYRINTH: HYPERTEXT, PHILOSOPHY, AND ARGUMENT.
-- 
Mark Bernstein
Eastgate Systems, Inc.   134 Main Street   Watertown MA 02172 USA
voice: (800) 562-1638 in USA   +1(617) 924-9044
Eastgate@world.std.com    Compuserve: 76146,262    AppleLink:Eastgate 
