Structure, tradition and possibility

ABSTRACT

Science is supposedly about reality, not about tradition, conventions or constructs. Yet computer science seems to me wrongly centered around two traditional, conventional constructs: the simulation of hierarchy and the simulation of paper.It is a popular myth that "structure" means hierarchy; and it is a popular conception that electronic documents should simulate paper. These two concepts have the additional advantage of being easy to explain to beginners. Accordingly, since the nineteen-forties we have simulated hierarchies to organize computer files, and since the nineteen-sixties we have progressively simulated paper -- from "text editing" to "word processing" to "desktop publishing" to the Web (which added one-way links to simulated sheets of paper). Now, merging hierarchy simulation with paper simulation, we have been given Adobe Acrobat (simultaneously simulating hierarchy and paper side by side) and XML (a system for transforming paper simulation into hierarchy and vice versa).I see these as ideological exercises in completing the hierarchy and paper paradigms, bypassing the vital issues. Rather than imitating the shortcomings of the real world, we should be correcting the insufficiencies of hierarchy and the deficiencies of paper. Things' being simple-minded and easy to explain does not make them sensible or right.