Do you remember the days when old BASIC (with line numbers) was the king?
And when GO TO was misused to create hard-to-read codes? Most authors
could not understand their own programs after a week or so. Now we have
languages like C++ or Jave where "higher a programmer" attitude becomes
necessary.
The Internet browsing equivalence of the GO TO is the HYPERLINK. I think
that we should be very careful about dangers of overlinking when we create
HTML documents for students. Learning is basically a sequential process.
I suspect that a textbook (on paper or CD-ROM) will remain the backbone
of physics teaching when (and IF) the wishes of promoters of "electronic
super-highways" are fulfilled.
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The costs of textbooks was discussed recently. I just bought the 1997
edition of Encyclopedia Britanica (32 volumes on one CD-ROM) for $100.
The cost of 32 books is $1500, ten times more than the regular price of
the CD-ROM. That little disk came with a powerful search engine. And it
does not occupy a lot of space. The costs of education are high, the
results are not great, and adminstrators will probably soon be promoting
the "distnance learning" as an economical alternative for those who can
not afford the cost of the "real thing".
Ludwik Kowalski