2 ms·

I'm not claiming that physical books have all the properties of digital ones, or vice versa. But there are reasonable affordances to a practical extent within

I'm not claiming that physical books have all the properties of digital ones, or vice versa. But there are reasonable affordances to a practical extent within both formats. I have a large print collection, and a much larger digital one, presently largely on an Onyx BOOX ebook reader. I'm well acquainted with the capabilities and limitations on both systems. (I've discussed the BOOX device fairly extensively in previous HN comments for those interested.)

eviks 2y ago
Reasonable affordance is fine, that's not what I was arguing against (nor you), but the obvious downside of flipping pages: it's not "very quick, easy" (especially in those huge dictionaries!)
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  That's where tabbed thumb cuts / index notches are useful: <https://cool.culturalheritage.org/don/dt/dt3508.html https://cool.culturalheritage.org/don/dt/dt3508.html> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_index> Image: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_index#/media/File:Blacks-Law-Dictionary.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_index#/media/File:Blacks...> Those may be cut in, or self-applied as with index tabs: The entire notion of a tabbed interface in the computer sense derives from index tabs: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(interface) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(interface)>
  - eviks 2y ago
    They are useful, but relatively bad: you realize there can be book-width worth of pages within a single letter in a dictionary? So all you've done is produced a regular book without any thumb navigation, so none of the physical virtues will help you find the specific word fast Besides, these are impossible to implement for anything dynamic, so they aren't even useful at all in most of the cases
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      If you're seeking a specific word, looking that up is a skill which can be trained and developed. Hint: binary search. If you're referencing between two or more sections of a book, bookmarks, index cards, stickies, tabs, etc., are all there for you. Source: old school printed book research.

eviks 2y ago

Reasonable affordance is fine, that's not what I was arguing against (nor you), but the obvious downside of flipping pages: it's not "very quick, easy" (especially in those huge dictionaries!)

dredmorbius 2y ago
That's where tabbed thumb cuts / index notches are useful: <https://cool.culturalheritage.org/don/dt/dt3508.html https://cool.culturalheritage.org/don/dt/dt3508.html> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_index> Image: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_index#/media/File:Blacks-Law-Dictionary.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_index#/media/File:Blacks...> Those may be cut in, or self-applied as with index tabs: The entire notion of a tabbed interface in the computer sense derives from index tabs: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(interface) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(interface)>
- eviks 2y ago
  They are useful, but relatively bad: you realize there can be book-width worth of pages within a single letter in a dictionary? So all you've done is produced a regular book without any thumb navigation, so none of the physical virtues will help you find the specific word fast Besides, these are impossible to implement for anything dynamic, so they aren't even useful at all in most of the cases
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    If you're seeking a specific word, looking that up is a skill which can be trained and developed. Hint: binary search. If you're referencing between two or more sections of a book, bookmarks, index cards, stickies, tabs, etc., are all there for you. Source: old school printed book research.