A file structure for the complex, the Changing and the indeterminate

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A file structure for the complex, the Changing
and the indeterminate

• Ted Nelson, 1965
• Presentation By Scott Phillips
• Discussion By Paul Davis

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Ted Nelson (1937 - )

• B.A., Philosophy, Swarthmore. 1959
• M.A., Sociology, Harvard, 1963
• Current projects
• (out dated, 2001)
• COSMICBOOKtm
• http//xanadu.com/cosmicbook/
• The New Xanadu
• http//xanadu.com/nxu/
• ZigZag,
• http//xanadu.com/zigzag/

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Goals Inspiration

• Create a system that allows for creativity not
  before seen in the business and scientific
  applications of the day.
• Citing Bushs Memex and concept of associative
  linking Nelson envisioned a dream file
• Every feature a novelist or professor could want
• Enable complex filing structures
• Allow notes and annotations.
• Obstacles (in 1965)
• Cost
• Sense of need
• Design

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Specification

• Up-to-date index (supplanting the code book
  suggested by Bush)
• No hierarchical file relations, the system would
  hold any shape imposed on it.
• file text in any form and arrangement desired
  (such as a card file, loose-leaf notebook, etc)
• Be able to file under an unlimited number of
  categories.
• Bush trails
• Hold commentaries explanations (annotations)
• Be fully modifiable and dynamic
• Dynamic indexing
• Version control and undo capabilities.
• Be simple

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Evolutionary File Structure (ELF)

• Entries
• chucks of text, long or short
• strings of symbols
• pictures
• programs or procedures
• Lists
• An ordered set of entries
• Entries may be in any number of lists
• Links
• A pairing between two entries in separate lists

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ELF File Operations

• Entries
• Create new entries
• Divide or combine existing entries
• Placed in any number of lists
• Lists
• Create new lists
• Combine or divide into sub lists existing lists
• Copy, rearrange, and insert entries.
• Links
• Create links between entries in separate lists
• Links remain across list operations (copy,
  rearrange, combine, divide)

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Possible ELF Uses

• No correct use
• Glorified card file,

• Historical / Associative trails
• Scholarly work

An example of a possible document structure in
ELF.
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PRIDE System

• Personalized Retrieval, Indexing, and
  Documentation Evolutionary (PRIDE)
• The interface through which a user interacts with
  file format.
• Every operation has an inverse.
• No practical restriction on the length of any
  input.
• If using a monitor it would include quick look up
  schemes.

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Hypertext

• Let me introduce the word hypertext to mean a
  body of written or pictorial material
  interconnected in such a complex way that it
  could not conveniently be presented or
  represented on paper.
• Any media text, video, audio
• Ever changing and evolving
• Changing classification and indexing
• Temporal

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Discussion Questions

• By Paul Davis

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Discussion Questions (1/4)

• Do Web pages enhance or detract from
  understanding the intention of an author if you
  remove the progression that the author intends
  and replace it with a mesh of ideas?

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Discussion Questions (2/4)

• What are analogous to entries in current Web
  browsers? Can such entries currently be combined
  or divided? How does that happen or would be
  envisioned if possible?

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Discussion Questions (3/4)

• Why do you think Ted Nelson wanted to concentrate
  on text handling at present for PRIDE? Why not
  conceptualize entries to include still images and
  video?

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Discussion Questions (4/4)

• On page 97, he believes information retrieval to
  be fundamentally mistaken because categories
  and subjects of information change over time and
  it seeks true, ideal, or permanent codes for
  categories. Do you agree? Are library catalog
  system invalidated?