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Re: WEB. Better? Cheaper? More desirable?



On Fri, 24 Oct 1997, LUDWIK KOWALSKI wrote:

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.

Probably the best use of hydperlinks is purely as an index, which
pretty much takes us back to the gophers of days gone by, with a few
pictures thrown in to look more modern. Links within the body of text can
be (and sometimes are) used effectively, but it is easy to overdo it.
Probably the most effective use of hyperlinks one sees is not on the web,
but in the help files for *some* of the software one gets.

My biggest objection to the way hyperlinks get frequently used can be
summarized with the following hypothetical set of web pages:

Hi, welcome to Dave's home page. For some really neat Physics
links check out my friends' pages:
Mary
Joe
Betty

Hi, welcome to Mary's home page. For some really neat Physics
links check out my friends' pages:
Dave
Joe
Betty

Hi, welcome to Joe's home page. For some really neat Physics
links check out my friends' pages:
Mary
Dave
Betty

Hi, welcome to Betty's home page. For some really neat Physics
links check out my friends' pages:
Mary
Joe
Dave

-----
Get the idea? I could sometimes swear that a group of web authors is
consipiring to send people in circles without ever finding any real
content. Many of my own pages are indexes, but I avoid adding other
indexes to them specifically to avoid this trend. A person should be able
to go through one or two links to find some useful self-contained
document, they shouldn't have to keep following promises of such through
site after site after site.



|++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
| Doug Craigen |
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| If you think Physics is no laughing matter, think again .... |
| http://cyberspc.mb.ca/~dcc/phys/humor.html |
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