[…] how my Distinction of Model [⇒ Model of a Shape] and Document come around to the forward growth of our system. I said it would be a "data wiki" and explained that there one could do work as well as talk about doing work.
~
Our dreams for this technology are pulled in different directions by competing traditions as to what we put into computers and what we expect to happen there. Hypertext straddles this division and is thus able to go either way. But our dreams are most likely aligned with one or the other.
A model is an informal or a formal representation of a system, made by an observer, to distinguish features of a system which are significant and to predict the consequences of a disturbance or change on the system. Modeling is a process everyone engages in every day. We have a model of the commuter traffic patterns on the way to work, models of the members of our family and our coworkers; in short a model of almost every significant aspect of our lives. If our models are good ones, we will be able to make sense of the world and predict, …