Serge Demeyer | Publications | E-mail Feedback
Last updated on Thursday, November 16, 2023
@techreport{Deme95z,
author = {Serge Demeyer},
institution = {Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium)},
month = mar,
title = {Ending the Tyranny of the Link: Adding Paths to the
Dexter-model},
year = {1995},
abstract = {Hypermedia technology is a potential benefit for all
computer applications that deal with information. To
penetrate new markets, hypermedia systems should be
tailorable to specific application domains. We claim
that an open, extensible hypermedia system is crucial
to attain such tailorability. A hypermedia system
should be capable to integrate 1) facilities for
incorporating vendor-independent document viewers and
2) flexible linking facilities that access external
information repositories. This document describes how
we extended the Dexter model with the "path" concept,
to model hypermedia systems with extensible link
engines. We show that paths absorb the notion of
links and make it possible to integrate various
strategies for resolving links. This proves our claim
that "paths end the tyranny of the link". This is
demonstrated with a case from the Software
Engineering Community: a framework browser. The case
involves a hypermedia system that integrates a
home-cooked world-wide web browser, an off-the-shelf
word processor (Microsoft Word) and a programming
environment for Smalltalk (VisualWorks). Besides
interpreting embedded (HTML style) anchors, the
system is able to query the Smalltalk environment to
link documentation to Smalltalk source code. The case
serves as a proof of concept that an extensible
hypermedia system can penetrate specific application
domains.},
annote = {techreport},
}