0.4 Three special events in the history of technology for creating  (Page 7/12)

HTML, the hypertext markup language, not only implements linking, but also allows control of the display ofmaterial. Unfortunately, it does not do much to encode what the material means . A second-generation language called the extensible markup language (XML) is just now becoming available; it can distinguish between form and content. This ability will be crucialto bringing a new information system into being.

As writing and literacy extended human memory and accuracy, hypertext extends the way the human mind connects andrelates ideas and information in text. It is a way to more directly implement metaphor, analogies, and multidimensional relationships.The human mind contains ideas and stories that traditional text and books capture efficiently and effectively. The connections andrelationships of ideas and the dynamic nature of thinking are crudely captured by traditional text, but both are betterimplemented and extended by the linking and tagging in hypertext. This opens a rich set of educational and perhaps artisticpossibilities, with the combination of text and hypertext providing a more accurate match to the way the mind works (or might evolveinto working).

“In an extreme view, the world can be seen as only connections, nothing else. We think of a dictionary as the repository of meaning, but it defines words only in terms of otherwords. I liked the idea that a piece of information is really defined only by what it’s related to, and how it’s related. … Thestructure is everything.” [Berners-Lee, p. 12]

A deep understanding of this new hypermedia environment is much more difficult than looking back at literacy orthe printing press, because we are in the middle of creating it. That, of course, is the point of this article. Read the material byand about Bush, Engelbart, Nelson, Levy, Novak, Berners-Lee, and Landow, then use a browser on the web to see how hypertext changesreading and the use of information. Less positive interpretations of some of the unintended consequences are presented by Birkertsand Postman.

The digital commons

Digital computation, storage, and communication technology have enabled entirely new ways to create,organize, and exploit information. For example, as we have seen, hypertext breaks apart the linear sequential ordering of the book,giving both the author and the reader new possibilities, greater flexibilities, and more control. But merely publishing a book as aset of hypertext web pages is only the first incremental step along the way of the third transition. In this period, we will see allmodes of interaction with information changed, in particular not just how humans interact with information but also how theyinteract with each other.

The print age has been based on paper books that are loosely inter-connected through a system of citations andquotations. Books themselves are organized into libraries, the “cathedrals of learning” if you will. Consider carefully the rolethat people play in this age. Most books are written by a single author or a small team, and authors are only loosely connectedtogether into communities. A book’s readers are generally completely disconnected from one another. Moreover, the time scaleof writing, editing, peer-reviewing, an updating is on the time-scale of years. Since time costs money, books are expensive.In summary, we can describe the print age as loosely connected, slow-paced, and costly.