Hypertext News & Information

 Pub. by Scribble & Count™ LLC

Issue 2:1 (Q1, 1998)

©1998 by Scribble & Count, LLC.  All rights reserved.


Contents of Issue 2:1

 This issue contains the following articles:
   From the Partners    [Hypertext Wars]
   Hypertext News    [Flurry of Releases from W3C]
   Techno Tips    [Resource Guide to the Hypertext Wars]
   S&C News    [S&C describes hypertext to Idaho Springs CofC]
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From the Partners...

Hypertext    Wars

 The bulls are rutting. There's a war going on. Pick your metaphor (and your vantage point; the show's worth watching).
1999 Note:  Written in early Feb. 1998, the week before NetHelp folded. You'll find a few dated references -- but also statements you'll have a hard time believing were written 15 months ago.
In this war, authoring tool competition (RoboHELP vs Doc-To-Help vs ForeHelp; or FrontPage vs HomeSite) are skirmishes. Help system competition (JavaHelp/NetHelp/OracleHelp vs HTMLHelp) is a battle. Hypertext standards (HTML, DHTML, XML, others to be named) is a theatre. Antitrust (Microsoft vs Dept. of Justice) is a battle trying to become a theatre. But the war is over platform and operating system hegemony: Windows vs Java. It matters.

Bill Gates would love to help Scott McNealy (Sun's CEO) make Java the pre-eminent programming language, and he's even willing to subordinate Visual C++ and scuttle Visual Basic to make that happen. But McNealy is fighting Gates every step of the way. He doesn't want his Java to dominate Gates' object oriented languages.

Has S&C lost it? Have we mixed up the players? No: if Java becomes the dominant programming language, it is much less of a threat to Windows as an operating system.
1999 Note:  Pretty avant garde, back then; fairly well accepted now.

Which authoring tool to use concerns those of us who are authors. Which environment to author in is a managerial decision; as consultants we advise others, and as authors we try to predict ourselves what to specialize in. Whether DOJ will remove IE from Win95 (and possibly eviscerate Win98) is unlikely but of utmost importance. But the 64 gigabyte question is whether the field will be left to Windows alone or Java will provide a viable alternative. If the latter, will the resulting competition help hypertext? And how soon?
1999 Note:  We were dismissing Unix/Linux: premature on our part. And we hadn't even heard of BeOS!

We've devoted this entire issue to barely scratching the surface of these questions. It consists only of short news briefs and a lengthy "Resource Guide" in the TechnoTips section. The planned General article has been deferred.
Note:  The telecommunications bulls are also rutting - but the situation is too different to merge with this issue. When direction of the post-Hundley FCC becomes clearer, the subject merits at least a TechnoTips article -- and possibly a bibliographic essay like the one in this issue, if we feel capable of doing it justice.

If you have any comments (and we want very much to hear them), please email them to Bill Sanders.

Thanks.


Marci Bowman
mbowman@scribble-count.com		 S&C logo



Bill Sanders
bsanders@scribble-count.com

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News...

Standards / Drafts / Recommendations Released

HTML 4.0
DHTML
DOM

HTMLHelp  
CSS2

XML 1.0
JavaHelp

 Since December [1997], there has been a flurry of activity, particularly from the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), but also from the vendors:
  Dec. 97  W3C released HTML 4.0 recommendation.
W3C released DHTML draft.
W3C released Document Object Model (DOM) draft.
  Jan. 98  Microsoft released HTMLHelp 1.1.
W3C released second CSS2 draft.
  Feb. 98  Microsoft released XML 1.0 specification.
Sun released JavaHelp specification.

New Forum

Tanstaafl Software

 Dana Cline, a Denver-based VB programmer / hypertext author, has added a threaded forum page to his company's Website:  www.tanstaafl-software.com/forums.html Dana has addressed national WinHelp conferences, contributed to national magazines, and is Wizop of CompuServe's Hypertext forum. Techie whizzes such as Bill Meisheid, Charlie Munro, etc. regularly visit both forums.

NetHelp Folds Its Tent

HTML
Help
Field
Narrows

NetHelp just announced it was closing shop, leaving JavaHelp as the principal cross-platform alternative to Microsoft. Oracle Help for Java (OHJ) is also Java-compatible and is still being actively developed and marketed; and, since NetHelp, JavaHelp, and OHJ are basically interoperable, NetHelp's decline doesn't seriously reduce the anti-Microsoft forces. Its two leaders (Corey Bridges and James Hom) will quickly surface in places that won't surprise us.

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Techno Tips...

Resource Guide: Selected & Annotated

Intro-
duction

 This list has been rigorously selected. Criteria were (1) value in helping to understand the (largely political/economic) issues behind the Hypertext Wars, and (2) general acessibility. This is not a bibliography of techniques; see the forums and specialized mailing lists for that. Nor does it address the telecommunications issues -- though there's a battle raging there, as well.
1999 Note:  This bibliography was published in early 1998, a generation ago in Internet terms.
   

Citations
alt.hypertext
  [Usenet newsgroup with a broad (often social) flavor. Caveat: subscribing floods mailbox with responses and with spam; use alias if email program permits, or launder through anonymous remailer.]
Boardwatch Directory of Internet Service Providers. Littleton, CO, Boardwatch, 1996--. Qtly.
  [> 100pp. of valuable articles and > 300pp. of ISP data arr. by area code. The articles often include analysis of the telecommunications dilemna, and occasionally of the hypertext deadlock; the parent magazine will be in any telecommunications bibliography we distribute. Also available online:  www.boardwatch.com  (1999 Note: Jack Rickard is no longer ed/pub.; tone is more shrill, less acerbic now.)]
comp.infosystems.www...
  [Several subgroups exist; find your niche. Again, subscribing triggers email barrage.]
CompuServe Hypertext Forum
  [Most important areas for decision-makers are following "Message Board" (threaded discussion) sections: (1) General, (6) HTML, (7) HTML-based Help, (11) WinHelp, & (16) General WinHelp. Denver's Dana Cline is WizOp. (See Tanstaafl, below, for Dana's Website, which also contains a threaded forum.)]
HotBot.  Http://www.hotbot.com
  [HotWired's search engine. Heavily leading edge digital in emphasis; but since hypertext qualifies, it's the best single search tool. Main drawback is its increasing commercialization. (1999 Note: Add Google (www.google.com) as HotBot's equal for tech searches.)]
Hot Wired.  Http://www.hotwired.com
  [Originally a rough online equivalent to Wired Magazine, it is now a complex, multi-faceted, often impenetrable technical resource of news, articles, forum, threaded newsgroup, IRC, and advertising barrage. Archive section contains issues of magazine.]
Information Week.  Manhasset, NY: CMP Publications, 1985--. Biweekly.  Http://www.informationweek.com
  [General communications news, sometimes hypertext-related.]
InfoWorld.  San Mateo, CA: InfoWorld Media Group (Div. of IDG), 1969--. 51 issues/yr. ISSN: 0199-6649.  Http://www.infoworld.com
  [The oldest and probably the best source of broad telecommunications news. Includes many items concerning hypertext's technological and socio-economic environment.]
Internet Computing.  Http://www.icomputing.com
  [Broad-based coverage for Web professionals; technical aspects for site creators; managerial topics for site administrators.]
Internet News.  Http://www.internetnews.com
  [From MecklerMedia Corp., a good news source.]
Internet Week.  Http://www.internetwk.com
  [Formerly Communications Week. Heavy promoter of DHTML. Also available in paper (ISSN: 0746-8121.]
"Java Jitters".  By Doug Shaker. Monthly column in Boardwatch Magazine.  Http://www.boardwatch.com
  [The author (a Java programmer) frequently comments on Java vs Visual C++/Visual Basic, and Java vs Windows conflicts.]
Microsoft website.  Http://www.microsoft.com
  [The site is huge; and although the search engine is good, point to the following:  .../workshop/author/htmlhelp/  (HTMLHelp news and updates);  .../sitebuilder/features/html4.asp  (their spin on HTML 4.0). For a specific question, their search engine in KnowledgeBase often works.]
Official Microsoft HTML Help Authoring Kit.  By Steve Wexler. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1997. ISBN: 1-57231-603-9.
  [Excellent introduction/intermediate treatment. Good comparisons of HTML, HTML-based help, and WinHelp. Wexler is pres. of WexTech, makers of Doc-To-Help.]
Sageline Website.  Http://www.sageline.com
  [Owner Bill Meisheid has a very good feel for the political as well as the technical situation. If he hasn't archived it by the time you read this, the home page has a link to his perceptive editorial on Microsoft, IE, and HTMLHelp. (If he has archived it, check the archive.)]
Sun Website.  Http://java.sun.com/products/javahelp
  [Sun's take on the Hypertext Wars; don't leave Microsoft's spin doctors unrebutted.]
Tanstaafl Software's Website.  Http://www.tanstaafl-software.com
  [Homepage has link to WinHelp and HTML threaded discussion groups (See "News" article, above). Webbmaster Dana Cline is nationally and recognized, so major figures visit regularly (as they also do to his CompuServe Hypertext forum).]
Web Review.  Http://www.webreview.com
  [The Website contains news, technical information, reference to other resources.]
Web Design Group.  Http://www.winhelp.com
  [Website contains news, technical info. URL notwithstanding, company has no apparent relationship to Microsoft's help systems.]
Webzine.  Http://www.webreference.com
  [Most of the site is too technical for this bibliography; but  .../new/
contains their newsletter, which fits our scope.]
WinHelp Journal.  Email: journal@winwriters.com  800/838-8999.
  [The pre-eminent journal for WinHelp (and now HTML-based help) authors; mostly technical, but reviews and editorials aid decision-making. Seattle-based and until recently Redmond-dominated. Perspective has broadened recently. Available only by subscription (no advertising, so expensive), and beginning this year only online.]
WinHLP-L Mailing List.  Email:  listserv@admin.humber.on.ca
  [More technical than decision-making conceptual postings, but nuggets exist.]
World Wide Web Consortium Website.  Http://www.w3.org
  [The W3C is the official sanctioning body for the Web, and they've been unusually busy this quarter (see "News", above). This site has their official spin.]
WWW Journal.  Http://www.w3j.com
  [Originally produced by O'Reilly. Features a few in-depth articles, rather than a potpourri of snippets.]
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S&C News...

Idaho
Springs
CofC

 On Wed., 4/15/98, Bill will speak on hypertext at the April luncheon of the Idaho Springs Chamber of Commerce. The talk will be brief and will stress the social, political, and business aspects of the new paradigm; it will not be technical. For reservations, dial 303/567-4382.

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