Re: [ba-ohs-talk] rough draft of graph model paper
Eugene. (01)
Two points, of which the second one wanders away from the main, "technical"
topic, but is not unimportant, maybe even more important. (02)
1. On the "tool system" side of things, a comment about fine-grained
addessability (while mindful of that old adage that fools rush in where angels
fear to tread) shouldn't there be also a way of pointing to fine-grained
features in graphics and tables? In the case of graphics, it would be nice to
create a link that effectively employs the co-ordinates of a mouse pointer.
(Application: I may wish to point to a detail in the reproduction of a painting
and others may wish to see what kind of attention various details of a painting
have received.) In the case of tables, it might be an area the user marked
using inverse video. Backlinking would also be important here. (03)
This wouldn't be all that complicated would it? Or am I just ignorant of this
kind of feature is already being under consideration? (04)
2. Moving on to the "human system" and bearing in mind that the topic you are
addressing is within the domain of improving communications among people, allow
me to step up in that hierarchy for a moment. (05)
I am taking for granted that your contribution, "Interoperability Between
Collaborative Knowledge Applications," is intended for a narrow, but not
clearly defined readership. People such as myself, who find themselves in the
border regions of that readership (fondly referred to be experts as the
ignorant or Joe Sixpack), might profit from an early-warning feature that would
let them assess whether or not they'd like to get into the content of a
document, how they may have use for it (for "fun or profit"), what they already
should be knowledgeable about. Afterall, time spent on one thing is not
available for something else. (06)
As things stand, authors do already add to their documents such features as
hyperlinking to explanatory notes (which can be exacerbating because the
clicker does not always clearly know what kind of feature to expect once he
clicked his 24-K modem into its slowly grinding action). Better still is that
feature of the Opera browser that lets the reader call up detail by double
clicking on a word or phrase. But these features come into play only after a
document has been entered. We need to improve efficiency in some way more up
front. We need to be able to improve on assessing how much time and effort
learning things will take. (07)
Allow me to use your document as an example - not as a criticism of an
obviously valuable contribution, just objectively. . (08)
I had some difficulties with the term "graph-based data model." My mind kept on
distracting itself with the question, "why write 'graph-based'? Why not
'graphical' as in everyday language?" Now I happen to know that you are a darn
good writer, so you must have a good reason for using this term. (I gather that
in the writing of your paper, your mindset was in a distinct mode -
disciplining your thinking around sets and subsets, that sort of thing.) (09)
I further wondered what is meant by "data model." Sure, I can guess from
context, but a guess is only a guess. Google was no help - try looking up
"Infoset data model" and, if one survives that, figure out how this is a subset
of a "standard data model" and why a graph-based data model is not a standard
data model. (010)
Initially, my musing led to the suggestion that (011)
(a) we ought to emphasize the value of making better use of the vernacular as
an intermediary processor (IP) between people slaving in different professional
and cultural niches (as the introduction to your document indeed tries to do),
and (012)
(b) that articles ought be accompanied by an indication of what potential
readers should already know about or understand or some indication of what
readership an author wishes to address. It used to be that context carries the
day (as indeed the title of your article does to an extent), but in a world of
information ever-complexing we must somehow come up with better ways of
communicating in addition to optimizing the use of hyperlinks. Or we all end up
being able to communicate effectively only within our narrow niches and will be
at loss everywhere else. (013)
I know, this is a tall order, but one that badly needs to be filled. (014)
With utmost respect for your accomplishments, (015)
Henry (016)
P.S. On getting older and living in a world where more and more people live
longer lives, the problem of effectively understanding communication is added
to be forgetting and false memories. These are the kind of things I have alo in
mind when trying to make a go of Fleabyte while often wondering whether to
bother, really. Could use some substantial encouragement from people on this
list. (017)
P.P.S. From DeXiderata referred to by our friend Eric Armstrong: "Listen to
others, even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story and won't shut up
until you have heard it." ;-| (018)
Eugene Eric Kim wrote: (019)
> I just posted a very rough, incomplete draft of a white paper entitled,
> "Interoperability Between Collaborative Knowledge Applications: Towards a
> Graph-Based Data Model for the Open Hyperdocument System." It covers:
>
> - motivation for a graph-based data model
>
> - examples -- threaded forum apps, dialog maps
>
> - discussion of existing graph-based modeling languages
>
> The draft is at:
>
> http://www.eekim.com/ohs/papers/graphmodel/
>
> I would really appreciate feedback. (As always, use the purple numbers
> for reference.) Thanks!
>
> -Eugene
>
> --
> +=== Eugene Eric Kim ===== eekim@eekim.com ===== http://www.eekim.com/ ===+
> | "Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they |
> +===== can have an excuse to drink alcohol." --Steve Martin ===========+ (020)