At 12:45 PM -0500 07-24-1997, Roy Tennant wrote:
>* Jordan Reiter suggested a hypermedia type to be added to Environment. I
>am suggesting multimedia as being more appropriate in that category (that
>is, hypermedia can be strictly text and therefore is probably more
>appropriate as text.x-hypertext, whereas multimedia objects can be hyper
>and still be classed as multimedia)
My one concern about this argument, which is one that I've been wondering
about during this whole resource-type discussion, is whether we are dealing
here with what *kind of information* is involved, or *how* it is involved.
Obviously, certain kinds of content limit themselves to certain clear
categories. But I question whether the world of hypermedia can be divided
up.
There are clear and specific instances of hyperlinked collections of words,
images, sound, animations, videos, etc. which are not purely textual. And
thus we come to the basic argument: even supposing that a hypermedia
creation *is* purely textual (which is less and less often the case), isn't
the fact that it has, in essence, been shaped into a new form, one that
could not be read in the same way that *any* other kind of text document
(all of which are linear) could be read?
Splitting up hypermedia into hypertext and "multimedia that just happens to
be hyper" seems to me to be carving up a creation intended to be whole.
The entire point of a hypermedia creation is to create an organically
linked "environment" that the reader can travel through, even if it might
be purely textual.
Why don't we simply classify VRML as a visual resource type instead of
classifying it under Environment? Because, clearly, VRML is dependent on
the user for its own manifestation, and because it allows the user to
submerge into another environment. The same is true for hypermedia.
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[ Jordan Reiter ]
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[ "You can't just say, 'I don't want to get involved.' ]
[ The universe got you involved." --Hal Lipset, P.I. ]
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