
Word sense of hypertext
Free-style blog is the right place for loosely scientific explanations. Such appease our need to understand things and help find better practical solutions. It's a good idea to begin them with a common understanding of key words.
The word "hypertext" has two parts. "Hyper" means "linked non-sequentially" according to many dictionaries. In other words, it means that there are non-linear links between nodes of hypertext, or "texts". Another theory is that "hyper" means "super", something like "supertext".
"Hypertext" is variously defined as an electronic document, a method of presenting information, an electronic technology, an organizational form which may just as readily be delivered on paper as electronically, a new literary form, and more. It can be summarized as follows.
Definition of hypertext
Hypertext is the presentation of information as a network of linked nodes. 'Presentation' here is static - it's a 'noun', not 'verb'.
Nodes are texts, sounds, graphics, their combinations, or other usable symbolic entities. Links are relationships between nodes. For example, one node may be an electronic text of a book, another a text about the author of the book. A link between the nodes would take the reader from one node to the other.
As an adjective, or "modifier", the word "hypertext" is used in such combinations as "hypertext system", "hypertext markup language", "hypertext database".
Instances of 'hypertext' are hypertexts, with the World Wide Web, a website, and a Use Simulator being examples.
Hypertexts exist as binary code stored in electronic media. We can't read the code directly, so we need interfaces.
These simple statements and seemingly obvious observations put many things in place. For instance, clear distinction between 'hypertext' and 'a hypertext' opens the way to a practicable classification of hypertexts which, incidentally, can describe each type of hypertext in hypertext format. Something like this blog.
