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> This version of the web wouldn’t require users to learn advanced computer skills in order to participate. The web doesn't require "advanced computer skills".

> This version of the web wouldn’t require users to learn advanced computer skills in order to participate. The web doesn't require "advanced computer skills". (Unless you use non-flexbox CSS alignments ;) It is fairly trivial to create basic HTML files. SSG + MD have removed a lot of the remaining obstacles. Most web sites are structured files, just with a "compiler" and possibly a database to store the files. But what they still do require is the ability to reason about structured data and its best configuration. And that is the truly hard problem, ever since Ted Nelson first talked about it. It also requires us to reason about how to best make that data consumable for humans. It doesn't just magically "arise from the structure", as much as I wish it did. The web site is a clear example - the lack of understanding how humans consume info, and what helps/hinders, leads to odd boxes around each paragraph. I still agree with the fundamental idea. The more structure we can encode in an easily graspable way, the easier it becomes to impose structure. But even then, the fundamental advantage of the web over hierarchical file systems is the non-linearity. And yes, correct, hierarchies matter, but the fundamental point the article misses is that there isn't just _one_ hierarchy. Wikipedia is a great example here - it fundamentally cannot be expressed in a meaningful way as a tree, even though it has many hierarchies. And hierarchies alone are insufficient. We've now learned, thoroughly I think, that hierarchical taxonomies always break down. If we're given to snark, Linnaeus took a good stab, he failed. In more practical terms, the emergence of "tags" has shown that we need a way to have non-hierarchical cross-cutting data. I think for a discussion of the subject, there's value in separating a few topics: * Presentation. The author is right, HTML made a grave mistake including that * Local representation. Again, agreement here, giving a file system structure that allows to infer meaning for later presentation is super helpful. (See point about SSG/MD) * Organization/Navigation: Any sufficiently complex set of data requires several separate overlaid structures to help humans navigate. * Human psychology: We're bad thinking about relation schemes beyond trees & grids. That means our organization schemes need to mirror them at least partially so we don't break our head. Corollary is that any sufficiently complex set of data needs searchability. There's probably more. It's a topic that's been brewing in my head for a while, you're getting a very rough first draft, sorry :)

pilgrim0 2y ago
> It is fairly trivial to create basic HTML files. SSG + MD have removed a lot of the remaining obstacles These are advanced computer skills IMO > It doesn't just magically "arise from the structure", as much as I wish it did. The web site is a clear example - the lack of understanding how humans consume info, and what helps/hinders, leads to odd boxes around each paragraph I appreciate the criticism. It's impossible to please everyone in terms of design, and I think your antipathy towards this particular style agrees with the general premises. Regarding if disposition arising from structure is desirable or not, I think it's a matter of culture and habit. The time and complexity savings for authoring and publishing afforded by this model, for me, satisfactorily offsets whatever could be said that it misses in the aesthetic or funcional department, which can always be patched and improved. The positive feedback I had from interested users, all of them tech-illiterate, is what gave me the confidence to pursue investing in the research, and also made me realize that my insecurities towards its acceptability, which stemmed from sentiments quite similar to what you put forth as criticism, were mere whims. As far as experience and perceptions can be trusted, I believe serial multimedia has been proved as a viable format. > And hierarchies alone are insufficient. Not disputing that. The fact the document model is hierarchical does not mean the document system has to be. In fact it was never planned to be. There are many mechanisms in place affording hypernavigation, down to the design of the in-memory representation. Just haven't been implemented for lack of resources. > you're getting a very rough first draft, sorry :) I'd love to hear more. Feel free to ping me anytime if this is a subject you find exciting to discuss!
- groby_b 2y ago
  > These are advanced computer skills IMO To set up? Yes. Absolutely. But that's equivalent to asking users to install a filesystem before using the machine :) Past installation, it's "write text. It shall appear" Nobody needs to hand-edit HTML any more. It has become, for better or worse, the assembly language of information design ;) > The time and complexity savings for authoring and publishing afforded by this model, for me, satisfactorily offsets whatever could be said that it misses in the aesthetic or funcional department I'm curious. Are you saying the boxes are helping you author/publish (in which case, please say more!), or am I wildly misunderstanding? > As far as experience and perceptions can be trusted, I believe serial multimedia has been proved as a viable format. Absolutely. But it doesn't create meaning by itself. It's merely a well-understood and simple way of organizing information. (I should've added "linear" to "tree" and "grid") And just having a pre-defined structure doesn't give meaning in general. You'll need to conform to it, and you need to deal with the parts that just won't conform. (soft/hard links exist to satisfy a need, if we want to go back to file systems) > I'd love to hear more. Feel free to ping me anytime if this is a subject you find exciting to discuss! I just might take you up on that ;) The topic's near and dear to my heart. (Alas, it is not my main occupation, so... feel free to ping as well. I might fall off the face of the earth from time to time ;)

pilgrim0 2y ago

> It is fairly trivial to create basic HTML files. SSG + MD have removed a lot of the remaining obstacles These are advanced computer skills IMO > It doesn't just magically "arise from the structure", as much as I wish it did. The web site is a clear example - the lack of understanding how humans consume info, and what helps/hinders, leads to odd boxes around each paragraph I appreciate the criticism. It's impossible to please everyone in terms of design, and I think your antipathy towards this particular style agrees with the general premises. Regarding if disposition arising from structure is desirable or not, I think it's a matter of culture and habit. The time and complexity savings for authoring and publishing afforded by this model, for me, satisfactorily offsets whatever could be said that it misses in the aesthetic or funcional department, which can always be patched and improved. The positive feedback I had from interested users, all of them tech-illiterate, is what gave me the confidence to pursue investing in the research, and also made me realize that my insecurities towards its acceptability, which stemmed from sentiments quite similar to what you put forth as criticism, were mere whims. As far as experience and perceptions can be trusted, I believe serial multimedia has been proved as a viable format. > And hierarchies alone are insufficient. Not disputing that. The fact the document model is hierarchical does not mean the document system has to be. In fact it was never planned to be. There are many mechanisms in place affording hypernavigation, down to the design of the in-memory representation. Just haven't been implemented for lack of resources. > you're getting a very rough first draft, sorry :) I'd love to hear more. Feel free to ping me anytime if this is a subject you find exciting to discuss!

groby_b 2y ago
> These are advanced computer skills IMO To set up? Yes. Absolutely. But that's equivalent to asking users to install a filesystem before using the machine :) Past installation, it's "write text. It shall appear" Nobody needs to hand-edit HTML any more. It has become, for better or worse, the assembly language of information design ;) > The time and complexity savings for authoring and publishing afforded by this model, for me, satisfactorily offsets whatever could be said that it misses in the aesthetic or funcional department I'm curious. Are you saying the boxes are helping you author/publish (in which case, please say more!), or am I wildly misunderstanding? > As far as experience and perceptions can be trusted, I believe serial multimedia has been proved as a viable format. Absolutely. But it doesn't create meaning by itself. It's merely a well-understood and simple way of organizing information. (I should've added "linear" to "tree" and "grid") And just having a pre-defined structure doesn't give meaning in general. You'll need to conform to it, and you need to deal with the parts that just won't conform. (soft/hard links exist to satisfy a need, if we want to go back to file systems) > I'd love to hear more. Feel free to ping me anytime if this is a subject you find exciting to discuss! I just might take you up on that ;) The topic's near and dear to my heart. (Alas, it is not my main occupation, so... feel free to ping as well. I might fall off the face of the earth from time to time ;)