Serge Demeyer | Publications | E-mail Feedback
Last updated on Thursday, November 16, 2023
@techreport{Deme94z,
author = {Serge Demeyer},
institution = {Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium)},
month = jun,
title = {Virtual Hypertext Based on Paths and Warm Links},
year = {1994},
abstract = {Throughout the last years a huge amount of work has
been devoted to the definition of hypertext models.
Even more resources have been directed towards the
domain of virtual (dynamic/ computational) hypertext,
among others motivated by the idea of building open
systems. Surprisingly enough, almost nobody stressed
the role of the underlying model in such virtual
systems. That is precisely the aim of this text: to
define a general hypertext model that is able to
support the notion of virtuality. Our assertion is
that the combination of the ancient concepts 'Paths'
and 'Warm Links' provide just the extra support
needed. Moreover this allows for a model where links
are but one of the possible ways to relate nodes.
While experimenting with the model, an interesting
question arose: do bi-directional links fit into a
virtual model ? This paper attempts to answer the
question. We chose a constructive approach, because
our aim was to create a laboratory where ideas
concerning virtual hypertext might be explored. We
applied recent viewpoints from the field of software
engineering (namely object oriented frameworks and
mixins) to assist the iterative design process. In
order to show the value of the work, we have
implemented two prototype applications. The first is
a browser for viewing (Smalltalk) source code which
includes query facilities, the second is an
electronic agenda. These experiments demonstrate
three desired properties of the model: the
applicability (considering the differences between
the prototypes), the open endedness (since it is able
to establish hypertext structures on top of
underlying foreign constructions) and the
extensibility (while building the applications, we
continued to expand the model).},
annote = {techreport},
}