zz: Re: yr. ZigZag notes/questions

[Ted Nelson <ted@xxxxxxxxxx>]

HI PAUL-- glad of your interest.

>Here are some ZigZag notes/questions:
>
>What happens when the I. and H. views are used simultaneously?  In a
special case, this would produce the familiar spreadsheet, but in others in
would produce a non-planar structure that would refuse to lay flat.

If by "simultaneously" you mean "in two windows", while centering on
 the same cell",  then you are seeing the same content two different ways.
 IF AND ONLY IF the cells are connected in a checkerboard fashion,
 the two views will be the same.

>The explanation that more than one cell can be at an intersection of two
dimensions was initially confusing to me because I already understood it to
be true -- I incorrectly assumed that this was being explained because
there were some way to show multiple cells on top of each other [on the
display].  Perhaps explaining that cells have membership in one or more
dimensions would suffice.

Right.  And we can base software on that double membership (putting, for
example,
 types of arguments for a subroutine into one particular column, without
having to
 know in advance how many there will be).  But the visualization is
iimportant too.
 We just don't have one yet.  That's one of the nice things about this--
you can
 add new visualizations for whatever aspects you'd like to be able to see.

>1.  A RANK IS NOT A DIMENSION. 
>
>Would it be more accurate to say that a rank occurs in alignment with the
dimension, but is not the dimension itself?

That's a nice way of putting it.

>     2.  EVERY CELL IS IN EVERY DIMENSION. 
>       
>When new dimensions are added pre-existing cells with either be
unassigned, assigned a default position, or assigned a position
algorithmically in the new dimension.  

I presume that by "unassigned" you mean "not connected in that
 particular dimension.  That is the natural result of creating a new
 dimension.  You can of course create programs to connect it any cell
 in any dimension for any purpose.  So you could have a routine that
 might create a dimension and connected certain cells in that dimension,
 for some purpose.

...>If cells can be unassigned, then this statement would not be true in
all cases.

Yes it is.  The cell is "in" the dimension whether or not it's connected
there.  Proof?
 Put the cursor on the cell and rotate so that dimension is visible.  The
cell is still there!
 So it's in the dimension!  Just has no neighbors as yet.

>The ZigZag viewer/editor has a narrow view.  Is there a proposed
visualization of a wide view?

Of course.  We want lots more views.  All views are valid.  The two we have
 are just a start, and we want to create many new views.

>What happens when normal row and column database is viewed by ZigZag? 

[see next message]

>Douglas Hofstadter would be very interested in ZigZag, I think.

Yeah, I've thought so.

All best, Ted


At 02:25 PM 8/20/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Ted,
>
>Here are some ZigZag notes/questions:
>
>What happens when the I. and H. views are used simultaneously?  In a
special case, this would produce the familiar spreadsheet, but in others in
would produce a non-planar structure that would refuse to lay flat.
>
>The explanation that more than one cell can be at an intersection of two
dimensions was initially confusing to me because I already understood it to
be true -- I incorrectly assumed that this was being explained because
there were some way to show multiple cells on top of each other [on the
display].  Perhaps explaining that cells have membership in one or more
dimensions would suffice.
>
>1.  A RANK IS NOT A DIMENSION. 
>
>Would it be more accurate to say that a rank occurs in alignment with the
dimension, but is not the dimension itself?
>
>     2.  EVERY CELL IS IN EVERY DIMENSION. 
>       
>When new dimensions are added pre-existing cells with either be
unassigned, assigned a default position, or assigned a position
algorithmically in the new dimension.  If cells can be unassigned, then
this statement would not be true in all cases.
>
>
>The ZigZag viewer/editor has a narrow view.  Is there a proposed
visualization of a wide view?
>
>What happens when normal row and column database is viewed by ZigZag?  A
considerable amount of existing data is in nice table formats, so a ZigZag
viewer should be able to present these data in a reasonable way.  The
ZigZag editor could potentially allow inserts and deletes that would make
the database non-planar.  This would be okay if the resulting data does not
need to be put back into the database.  In a more elaborate ZigZag
filesystem, legacy applications could have simplified views of ZigZag data
structures (however, having the simplified view be write enabled would
present a complex problem for data merging.)
>
>Douglas Hofstadter would be very interested in ZigZag, I think.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Paul
>
>
>
____________________________________________________
Theodor Holm Nelson              
Project Professor, Keio University SFC Campus, Fujisawa, Japan
Visiting Professor, University of Southampton, Southampton, England

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