HIPERTEXTO
"Ted Nelson - The Visionary of Hypertext
Theodore "Ted" Nelson was the man who coined such terms as hypertext and
hypermedia. In his book Literary Machines
(first published in 1981, several revised editions since that) Nelson gives
a thorough description of his grand idea, "A program
intended to make possible a new unified electronic literature […] a computer
program intended to tie everything together and
make it all available to everyone", known as the Xanadu[1].
Nelson makes clear his indebtedness to Vannevar Bush: "I say Bush was right,
and so this book describes a new electronic
form of the memex, and offers it to the world."[2]Xanadu was a plan for an
electronic form of Memex - database with user
defined links, paths and notes - but it was also something much more. While
Memex in principle was a local machine (although
the records might have been transferrable), Xanadu was a global system (”a
unified concept of interconnected ideas and
data”). While it is now possible to argue that ”Xanadu never shipped”,
Nelson's ideals were still concretized in all their global,
unifying aspects, in World Wide Web[3].
Nelson defines hypertext as ”non-sequential writing”[4]:
"Well, by "hypertext" I mean non-sequential writing -- text that
branches and allows choices to the reader, best
read at an interactive screen. As popularly conceived, this is a series
of text chunks connected by links which offer
the reader different pathways.”He also states that ”Hypertext can include sequential text, and is thus the
most general form of writing” and adds in a footnote,
”In one direction of generalization, it is also the most general form of
language.”[5] The improvement of writing in hypertext
means that authors can write more freely, more flexibly, hypertext writing
bending better to accomodate the forms of the topic
in question. Also the readers may more freely follow their interests when
reading hypertext.
Nelson’s grand idea was to build a global network, where individual
hypertext documents could be linked to each other when
necessary – in his own words, to make ”instantaneous electronic literature”
possible. His definition for ”literature” was a very
general one, literature for him meaning "the information that we package and
safe". Networked computers were seen as
platform for the most general form of writing – hypertext – thus, he termed
computers as ”literary machines”. There is also the
stress on the essential referentiality of literature which comes very close
to the poststructuralist text concepts of Jacques Derrida
and, especially, Roland Barthes:In this ideal text, the networks are many and interact, without any one
of them being able to surpass the rest; this
text is a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has
no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by
several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be
the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend
as far as they can reach, they are indeterminable (meaning here is
never subject to a principle of determination,
unless by throwing dice); the systems of meaning can take over this
absolutely plural text, but their number is never
closed, based as it is on the infinity of language.[6]"Información de:
http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~koskimaa/thesis/chapter2.htm
Para Balzer hipertexto es:
"una base de datos que tiene referencias cruzadas y permite al usuario (lector) saltar hacia otra parte de la base de datos, si éste lo desea".
Bolter define:
"Un hipertexto es como un libro impreso en el cual el autor tiene disponible un par de tijeras para cortar y pegar pedazos de redacción de tamaño conveniente. La diferencia es que el hipertexto electrónico no se disuelve en una desordenada carpeta de anotaciones: el autor define su estructura definiendo conexiones entre esas anotaciones".
En publicaciones como Byte, [Fiderio, 1988] se lee la siguiente definición:
"hipertexto, en el nivel más básico, es un manejador de base de datos que permite conectar pantallas de información usando enlaces asociativos. En un nivel mayor, hipertexto es un ambiente de software para realizar trabajo colaborativo, comunicación y adquisición de conocimiento. Los productos de este software emulan la habilidad del cerebro para almacenar y recuperar información haciendo uso de enlaces para un acceso rápido e intuitivo".
Información de:
http://www.ldc.usb.ve/~abianc/hipertexto.html
Dando en primer lugar una definición de Ted Nelson sobre el hipertexto y después otras de otros autores importantes en este mundo, uno ya tiene más de una visión para entender el mundo de los hipertextos y no sólo se basa en una definición. Además si se hace "click" en los correspondientes enlaces se entra en unas páginas que considero importantes si se quieren aprender más cosas sobre esta ciencia.
En el test 02 que realicé al principio del curso también se puede ver alguna definición o punto de vista más sobre los hipertextos: