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That's assuming anyone even anticipated comparability with print media. I think the original vision of hypertext documents was closer to the of text files than

That's assuming anyone even anticipated comparability with print media. I think the original vision of hypertext documents was closer to the of text files than that of magazine pages. Grid layouts are clearly not popular in text files. I think if HTML was modeled after what was seen around it, it would look more like Markdown, with correspondingly fewer features. Not to mention, modeling software interfaces after real-world objects is often a very bad idea.

bensummers 17y ago
I wouldn't imagine compatibility with print media would be a concern. But if you're going to specify a presentation language, it might have been a good idea to check the sort of layouts people have done in the past.
elviejo 17y ago
"modeling software interfaces after real-world objects is often a very bad idea." really? What do you think of the desktop of your computer, compared to your physical desk? or the fact that the windows of your programs can be stack on top of each other like paper pages? Or text processing programs, that show you the output the way it is going to be displayed (WYSIWG). Or that whole Object Oriented Programming thingy. On the contrary modeling software interfaces after real-world objects is a very good idea.
- DanielStraight 17y ago
  The desktop of my computer bears no resemblance to my physical desk. I have no icons on my physical desk. My physical desk can hold absolutely anything no matter shape or size and I can stack things and put them in piles and clear them off with one swoop of my hand. Also, my computer desktop has nothing on it, which is quite different from my physical desk. The fact that "windows" can "stack... like paper" shows that the real world isn't being modeled. Last time I checked, windows could not be stacked like paper and windows on my computer have very little resemblance to paper in any other way. I'm quite certain paper wasn't the inspiration for stacking windows. I think WYSIWYG editors are a bad idea, precisely because they try to model the real world too closely. Object oriented programming is about much more than modeling real-world objects in code. Sometimes (often in fact) that is exactly the wrong way to create objects. Trying to model software off real-world objects is how you get stupid things like clicking and dragging to flip pages on a document you're reading, all while animating the turning of the pages. The examples you give (where they are accurate at all) are about using physical objects to provide a metaphor for understanding software. The perfect example is the trash / recycle bin. It provides a metaphor that makes it easier for people to learn what it does, but it isn't modeled after a real trash can or recycling bin. You don't have to empty it. You can, but it's not required. You don't have to change bags. It isn't picked up twice a week. It doesn't start to smell after a while. It's of essentially unlimited size. If it was modeled after a real trash can, some of these things would have been implemented in some way.

bensummers 17y ago

I wouldn't imagine compatibility with print media would be a concern. But if you're going to specify a presentation language, it might have been a good idea to check the sort of layouts people have done in the past.

elviejo 17y ago

"modeling software interfaces after real-world objects is often a very bad idea." really? What do you think of the desktop of your computer, compared to your physical desk? or the fact that the windows of your programs can be stack on top of each other like paper pages? Or text processing programs, that show you the output the way it is going to be displayed (WYSIWG). Or that whole Object Oriented Programming thingy. On the contrary modeling software interfaces after real-world objects is a very good idea.

DanielStraight 17y ago
The desktop of my computer bears no resemblance to my physical desk. I have no icons on my physical desk. My physical desk can hold absolutely anything no matter shape or size and I can stack things and put them in piles and clear them off with one swoop of my hand. Also, my computer desktop has nothing on it, which is quite different from my physical desk. The fact that "windows" can "stack... like paper" shows that the real world isn't being modeled. Last time I checked, windows could not be stacked like paper and windows on my computer have very little resemblance to paper in any other way. I'm quite certain paper wasn't the inspiration for stacking windows. I think WYSIWYG editors are a bad idea, precisely because they try to model the real world too closely. Object oriented programming is about much more than modeling real-world objects in code. Sometimes (often in fact) that is exactly the wrong way to create objects. Trying to model software off real-world objects is how you get stupid things like clicking and dragging to flip pages on a document you're reading, all while animating the turning of the pages. The examples you give (where they are accurate at all) are about using physical objects to provide a metaphor for understanding software. The perfect example is the trash / recycle bin. It provides a metaphor that makes it easier for people to learn what it does, but it isn't modeled after a real trash can or recycling bin. You don't have to empty it. You can, but it's not required. You don't have to change bags. It isn't picked up twice a week. It doesn't start to smell after a while. It's of essentially unlimited size. If it was modeled after a real trash can, some of these things would have been implemented in some way.