Re: Ada packages and/on web pages (was Re: GPGME (was Re: GnuPG binding?))

[Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@d2-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>]

Preben Randhol <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote:
 
 [freshmeat]
: You submitt a short and a longer description which will be edited (if
: needed as not everybody in the world speaks English fluently).

Sure, so what? It is essentially a useful index where each entry
is accompanied by a short description. Things like these have
existed for a long time, and there rarely was and is cross
referencing in them. It is easy to see why:

Each author of an abstract doesn't necessarily have all
the other abstracts, from which they could collect those
that are relevant, and find enough specific information
in them so they could point their readers to that specific
information in another abstract.

:> No. I won't have a links collection, but I will have cross references,
:> in context (con_text_!).
: 
: But what gain is this?

Have you really never had the pleasure of reading a text
which has cross references in it? By this I mean, for example,
a book with phrases like, "as is explained in on p.34, section 4.3
on aeronautical vacuum cleaning",
or an online dictionary with entries containing "a Foo is a stick
with => notches in it"?

That is, a text which _never_ requires a search engine, because
every relevant piece of text has enough cross referencing attached
to it so you always can move directly to a place that explains the
item which at the start of the link is required knowledge?
In the first example, you won't need the index because you can open
p.34, in the second example you won't need to search for "notches",
because there is a clickable link (show here as "=>").

This is precisely because the authors of the book and the dictionary
have bothered to actually add cross referencing links _in_ the
text body. Let me repeat: _in_ the text body.


:> How many times will I have to repeat that I don't think indices are
:> bad?
: 
: Because you keep saying that they are unessesary.

Show me where, maybe there is a misunderstanding.
I said they are no more than a useful add on, but unnecessary
the moment there is good hyperlinking.
You keep asking me where I look for information I1 when I don't
know where I1 it is.
I tell you that if I have heard about I1 I do already have a
link because otherwise I cannot possibly have heard about I1.
In addition, the moment I learn about I1 in a text which _is_
a hypertext, a text that does have cross references, then I 
won't need a search index for finding I1 because there _is_ a
hyperlink to I1.

How did the first author at the link end learn about I1?
Do I have to care? No. Do I have to find an origin in the
transitive closure of good hyperlinks? No, because the
information is there. Where did it come from? This is a
relogious/philosophical question. The information is there,
otherwise I cannot know it.

Things are different if I don't know exactely what I am
looking for. Here I can follow any path I like, and the moment
I have found a network of good cross references I will be happy
because it is full of well-connected information I had been
looking for.

:> This, again, is a question of where recursion starts. I don't know how
:> you learn about things, but is it only through reading freshmeat?
: 
: No, but when I'm looking for software I use freshmeat, sourceforge,
: yahoo, google more or less in that order.

So what does this tell me about the usefulness of good hyperlinking?

:> Same question as above, you refuse my answer.
: 
: Please reitterate because I don't understand which answer that would be.

O.K. See above.