- "hypertext" describes a set of UI conventions. linking to things is not new
- rendering static documents is distinct from interactive dynamic ones
- forms are static documents
- rendering documents is not remotely related to their mode of transmission.
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URL format? make it completely opaque
static document rendering is not an internet problem, nor a programming problem. everyone in the world who writes has a stake. every format i know of is unspecified and ascii-centric.
i think org could work. not forked—from scratch. i think attribute containers are a good model for various affordances. that the document is readable without highlighting makes me feel that it could be empowering to write a document that will continue to parse the same years later.
"text" is problematic. but structure and layout are distinct. so:
- structural ontology: spanning, anchoring, containment, metadata
- an ASCII "realization" associates each structure to a grammar model with ASCII tokens
from this, we render:
- page splitting/wrapping
- order and visibility of sections
- fontification
so a renderer can be hooked up to a graphics device etc
@vtrlx is there a structured document format you like? i have been convincing myself above that "plain text" can be contextually meaningful, and that structure is distinct from realization.
html technically has a "structure", but it's only made available in the js dom. html is also a google product.
i want a text format because:
- the user has access to the whole document contents
- i do not know of any attempt to distinguish structure and realization like this—this is also how i want my programming language to work
contra html, static and dynamic behavior are not the same. jarek duda tried really hard to make a use for wolfram's plotting widget, but scientific figures are static because they represent specific data. i believe dynamic layout is a much harder problem and overlaps very little with document structure.
i think every ui should be like a game ui. i think gamedevs have been working with graphics like i've worked with text. i fundamentally do not believe that dynamic content is a structured document.
servo's parallel layout engine: required a new language to do successfully. CSS evaluation is state-dependent, so parallelism is very hard.
ok, i'm not familiar enough yet here but i feel this works for now
what if your and my dynamic UI,,,,,
kissed each other in the vulkan API......
org-mode fucked up with the hierarchical sections. fucked it up more by using repeated ASCII *. complete waste of lexical syntax
- "hacker text format"
- is the structure hierarchical or good
- it's a good format sir
- dot jay peg
oh. another point (which latex demonstrates well):
- most layout is word flow
- some layout sections must support more precise arrangement conditions
i'm not quite sure here, but:
- i would very much like to avoid the "latex problem" and the "css problem"
- where because some feature necessitates pixel precision, the entire language must support same
perhaps a "layout graph" could describe pluggable structure, with each such structure supported by each renderer
the layout graph is distinct from a realization: each layout graph instance by the user uses the same delimiters, as per realization
i feel it must be deeply arrogant to forgo the entire web ui model, but i don't think a written document and a software interface are at all the same thing!!!
i don't think it was wrong to try that out. but also, the web was (as a product, with hypertext) very much intended to replace text. word processors used to be designed for experts, and expensive—HOLD THAT THOUGHT! https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0720/072011.html
Yet there has come to be something human about typewriters. At least I am rather taken with the notion that Cummings, whose strange patterns of verse fairly fizz on the page, sat down to a foursquare upright like the one I was given by an old Marine Corps buddy from Maine. And that Plath called forth her dark muse on an almost playful little Hermes like the one I carried in my luggage for years.
this is incredible! each author—their own extension of arm and hand?
[voice wavering] what would it mean to have developed sylvia plath's preferred typewriter?
a typewriter is a very human machine. one wonders if cummings was encouraged to wander around the page because tab stops are essentially gundam power steering?
@hipsterelectron I've never bought into the idea that structure and layout are separable:
- page splitting is absolutely structural
- order of sections is structural (what would even justify reordering sections for display?)
- font selection (esp mono vs not) affects alignment, which affects semantics
@hipsterelectron zooko's triangle says "yip" imo.
