IRList Digest Tuesday, 2 August 1988 Volume 4 : Issue 43 Today's Topics: Email - Change in IRList distribution Interests - New subscriber, electronic books, hypertext, ... Discussion - Hypertext definition, according to Nelson ... - Hypertext defined as nonsequential writing - Online searching style - IR on connection machine Call for Papers - Network Computing Forum News addresses are Internet or CSNET: fox@vtopus.cs.vt.edu or fox@fox.cs.vt.edu BITNET: foxea@vtvax3.bitnet (soon will be foxea@vtcc1) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 2 Aug 88 10:27:10 EDT From: Edward A. Fox Subject: email - change in distribution procedure Hi! Since it is such a mess sending out Internet mail through Listserv, I have decided to try an experiment. While Listserv will still be used to send out mail to Bitnet sites, all other mail will be sent out from fox.cs.vt.edu which is on the Internet (through SURANET, into NSFNET). I hope that this will simplify handling of mail errors (I have been getting some 50 messages per day at least for about a week after each digest issue goes out, mostly meaningless due to mail incompatibilities). Please note that fox.cs.vt.edu is not in many of the host tables, but is reachable through the domain system. It has number 128.173.2.110 and is served by our campus name server dcssvx.cc.vt.edu 128.173.4.247 My other address is fox@vtopus.cs.vt.edu which goes through our departmental mail server vtopus.cs.vt.edu 128.173.2.1 but since we will be rewiring our computer room and replacing that machine with others during the next few months, there may be some mail dislocation. From the Internet, you can reach fox.cs.vt.edu directly, and from all other networks that can reach the Internet you can reach me at the better known address fox@vtopus.cs.vt.edu I still am using foxea@vtvax3.bitnet as the address you should mail to if you are a Bitnet site, but eventually, when all host tables are updated, you can use foxea@vtcc1.bitnet instead, and that is what appears in outgoing mail from here now. I hope this is not confusing. In short, if all goes well you should not notice any difference from the previous arrangement, except that Internet mail should arrive sooner. Please let me know if you have any troubles. - Ed. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Jul 88 23:22:05 SST From: "Tai Hou, TNG" Subject: Help [New member, interests listed - Ed.] Hi, can you please give me more details on this interest group/s ? I am interested in IT in general, and specifically in Electronic Books, Electronic Publishing, and Hypertext/Hypermedia. Thank you. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jul 88 00:19:09 EDT From: "James H. Coombs" Subject: Hypertext Defined Concisely CA Ventura asks: Does anyone have a good (succinct) definition of what hypertext/-media is? I am trying to figure out whether or not an application I am working on qualifies. T.H. Nelson would respond: By "hypertext" I mean non-sequential writing. [Computer Lib. (85).] the word *hypertext,* as I had already defined it in print, properly referred to *non-sequential writing,* and that the interactive system itself should not be referred to as "hyper- text." [Literary Machines. (1/21-22).] It seems fair to say that any system that supports non-sequential writing has a reasonable claim to being labeled a "hypertext system." The second quotation is useful to drive home the centrality of that concept to Nelson's vision. In his writing, at least, he works hard to keep our focus on people instead of on machines and on process instead of on product. I think that most of us approve of that effort and share its motivations. Unfortunately, Nelson *seems* to be engaging in linguistic prescriptivism; there are ways to argue that away, but Nelson might well disagree with them. Whatever his intentions, it's as fair to speak of "hypertext systems" as it is to speak of "computer manuals". A manual is not a computer, and a system is not a hypertext; but the manual presents material on computers, and the system presents and supports the creation of hypertexts. But, why not read Nelson for yourself? and Bush? It stretches the mind and prepares for the development of stimulating tools. --Jim Dr. James H. Coombs Software Engineer, Research Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) Brown University jazbo@brownvm.bitnet Acknowledge-To: ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Aug 88 13:55:32 DNT From: Jakob Nielsen Tech Univ of Denmark Subject: HyperText definition My definition is simply that hypertext is nonsequential writing: The text is split into a set of nodes and there are pointers which enable the user to jump between the nodes. Hypermedia is the same as hypertext except that it uses multiple media types such as text (again), graphics, sound, movies, etc. For example, in a HYPERTEXT, the previous word might be highlighted and the user could click it to see the definition in the first paragraph of this message. In a hypermedia document there might be a photo of a bicycle and the user could click different parts of it to learn how to repair them (use of 2D image as index). There is more to it than this, and many people use narrower definitions, while a few use broader definitions (e.g. all online, dynamic text). Typically, a more narrow definition would require the system to include structure-oriented browsing support such as maps of the link structures or bidirectional links. [Note: Jakob's ideas have helped shape one of the "Hypertext on Hypertext" versions, that one edited by Ben Shneiderman, of the July issue of CACM. I believe that ACM is now selling a version of that special issue on hypertext for Mac's (using HyperCard, edited by Nicole Yankelovich of Brown's IRIS Project) as well as the IBM PC (HyperTies) version edited by Ben, and that a version (using KMS) for SUN and Apollo is also almost finished. As the title suggests, the idea is to learn about hypertext by reading about it using a hypertext system. - Ed.] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jul 88 10:24:16 CST From: Jeff Huestis Subject: More on searching styles, costs, and IR research As long as we seem to be having an actual DISCUSSION about searching styles, etc., I've got a couple other things to say. As far as the cost issue is concerned--that's going to change very soon. End-user searching is coming on a larger scale than what we've seen so far. Local library systems, currently limited pretty much to online catalogs, will be offering IRS type searching of what people in the catalog world are starting to call "reference databases", ie., what's on DIALOG, etc. Library politics being what it is, it is almost certain that a fair portion of this will be subsidized--free to the user. Cost as a consideration will become more important at the macro level and less important at the micro level. The distinction between online catalogs and IRS systems will become more blurred, making the nice matrix shown in [Borgman, Christine L. "Why are online catalogs hard to use? Lessons learned from information-retrieval studies", Journal of ASIS 37(6):387-400 1986] somewhat more complicated. It would be good to blur this distinction; I'm not sure that end-users have ever considered it very important. It will be possible to capture much more information about user behavior. Aside from correlating search logs with circulation statistics and photocopying records, we'll be able to corner a few people and "survey" them. We could enter a "hundred-flowers" [ref. Mao's Cultural Revolution] period of research and development, with IR studies becoming a cottage industry in every hamlet running a (modifiable) local system. Given appropriate safeguards [ref. the FBI's "library awareness" program], people that are now doing sophisticated IR research with test files could be using more real data with something more detailed than catalog and circulation records. Well, some of this isn't so new, and some of it may not be so true, and some of it may not happen. What is certain is that the "real world" side of IR will become more decentralized, and we should be thinking about the implications of that for IR research. [Note: I know that OCLC is engaged in task analysis and other studies of users and their needs - has anyone heard of other studies by information producers and providers (the folks who have a need to know about all this) that may become available for formal or informal publication? I agree that as we move more into providing multimedia information in digital form to end users that we have a lot to learn about needs and preferences, which should help us better "personalize" and "individualize". - Ed.] Nuff sed. --Jeff Huestis Washington University St. Louis ------------------------------ From: wyle%lavi.uucp@cernvax Date: 29 Jul 88 10:23 +0200 Subject: IR on connection machine >Importance: high >Errors-To: wyle@solaris.uucp >X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (6.3 6/25/88) A few comments appeared in comp.misc on usenet, regarding Dow Jones' use of connection machines: Article 1084 of comp.misc: From: jaw@eos.UUCP (James A. Woods) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Colorful Quips about Connection Machines Keywords: Dow Jones Message-ID: <1154@eos.UUCP> Date: 25 Jul 88 23:47:01 GMT Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, California Lines: 51 a smattering of comments from an article in Computerworld, July 18, 1988. The protagonist: Bill Dunn, executive VP of Dow Jones & Co., a 1.4 billion dollar information services giant, who just spent a piddling $5.3 million on ... The machine: (two) Connection Machine(s), to supplement some IBM 3090s, 4300s, and DEC VAXen they'd rather junk. The initial impression: "It was a 12-sided hypercube -- I thought that was something you put in a drink," Dunn recalls. The problem: "We have this fantastic service," Dunn says, "a wonderful business amalgam of 70 billion characters of information on computers in networks, on packet switches, with terminals and personal computers. And if I walk up to this fantastic collection and say 'How is Boeing doing in its competition with Airbus?' I'll wait ... and wait ... and then I'll see 'Zero documents.' Then I play the machine's game. I type in 'Boeing' ... I get 8,763 documents. I try Boeing and Airbus ... 392 documents. And the meter is ticking at $2.40 per minute, and someone wants the answer and you're on the phone and sweating a bit. Then I say, 'The heck with it, it's not worth it.' Dunn is outspoken in his disdain for the unfathomable "Boolean" gibberish need to prompt today's computers. The solution: Thinking Machines Inc. relevance searching algorithm with feedback, programmed in C on a VAX frontend. or, as Bill puts it: "The Connection Machine is really an idiot. It runs like a son of a bitch, but it drools at the end of a 100-yard dash. You have to have another mechanism that wipes its mouth, pulls its pants up and takes it over to get the blue ribbon." The prize: Real-time access to six months of hundreds of publications like The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Business Week, USA Today, etc. Viewing the investment as a "drop in the bucket" compared to $250 million the company spends just on printing presses, Dunn forsees the purchase of "many, many more" such machines. Summing up: "With Thinking Machines, we were the great white hope," Dunn says. "They were tired of blasting missiles out of the air or splicing genes in a mouse gonad. Here was something that could actually benefit mankind." -Mitchell F. Wyle wyle@ethz.uucp Institut fuer Informatik wyle%ifi.ethz.ch@relay.cs.net ETH Zentrum 8092 Zuerich, Switzerland +41 1 256-5237 ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jul 88 12:31 PDT From: William Daul / McAir / McDonnell-Douglas Corp Author: Beverly Pieper Subject: NETWORK COMPUTING FORUM - CALL FOR PAPERS NETWORK COMPUTING FORUM CALL FOR PAPERS OCTOBER 5-8, 1988 HOLIDAY INN WESTPORT, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI The next meeting of the Network Computing Forum will be held on October 5-7 in St. Louis, Missouri. This will be the fourth meeting of the Forum, and will focus on the role of the Forum as a catalyst for change in the industry. The Forum is an industry group chartered to lead the way for rapid adoption of multi-vendor network computing concepts and technologies. Forum meetings allow representatives from users and vendors to work together on common issues in an open, informal atmosphere. The Forum has over 100 member organizations, and more than 220 representatives attended the May 1988 meeting. Forum meetings are organized into three sessions: a conference featuring invited papers and panel sessions, meetings of interest groups and working groups, and a policy making executive committee meeting. Some areas of interest to the Forum member organizations are listed, to suggest possible topics for papers: Definition of user requirements for network computing Practical experiences using network computing concepts & technologies Partitioning and/or integration of applications across networks Remote procedure calls and other core services for network computing System and network administration for networks of heterogeneous computers User interfaces and user environments for network computing Software licensing in a network environment Data representation and command scripting across heterogeneous networks Use of network computing with IBM mainframes (MVS and VM) Invited Papers As part of each Forum meeting, papers are invited from the community at large for presentation and discussion. These papers should address the use or development of network based applications and services. Emphasis should be placed on creating and using tightly coupled links between multiple, heterogeneous computer systems. Technical descriptions of research projects, user experiences, as well as commerically available products are welcome. Invitations are also extended for more informal talks on practical experience in administering heterogeneous computer networks. All presentations should be 35 minutes in length, with 15 minutes of discussion following each presentation. Abstracts must be received by August 10, 1988. Abstracts should summarize the paper in two or three paragraphs and include the mailing address, affiliation, and phone number of the author(s). Notification of abstracts selected will be sent on August 19, 1988 and papers must be submitted no later than September 20, 1988. Papers can be copyrighted, but must include authorization for unrestricted reproduction by the Network Computing Forum. Papers can be marked as working papers to allow future publication. SEND ABSTRACTS BY AUGUST 10, 1988 TO the Program Chairman for the October 1988 meeting: T.D. Carter c/o Jan McPherson McDonnell Douglas Travel Company 944 Anglum Drive, Suite A Hazelwood, MO 63042 (314) 233-2951 Internet Address: TDC.MDC@OFFICE-8.ARPA ------------------------------ END OF IRList Digest ********************