Re: Presentation on Xanalogical Data Structures

[Don Dwiggins <d.l.dwiggins@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff, definitely good stuff.  As one who's been interested in 
Xanadu for quite a while, but never had occassion to get involved 
more deeply, I'm happy to see the concepts being made more 
publicly accessible.

In reply to:
> Definitely magic stuff.  One question - in explaining all of 
> Xanadu, say in a book or presentation, would you start at the 
> top and work down to the details, or start with the details and 
> assemble the architecture piece by piece?

For a good presentation, you'll have to do both, and maybe some 
middle-out as well.  Off the top of my head, I'd say start with 
the goals to be achieved, and how it's supposed to look/work at 
the interfaces (user, automated client, peer); then discuss the 
issues that arise, and the problems to be solved, as a lead-in to 
the architecture, algorithms and constructs that address the 
problems and issues (this provides a hook for discussing 
performance, open issues, TBDs, etc.).  Then, work back toward the 
top (outer) level, showing by some examples (use cases) how it all 
hangs/works together.

FWIW,
--

Don Dwiggins			 I'm sorry for creating such a complex design,
d.l.dwiggins@xxxxxxxxxxxx         but I didn't have time to make a simple one.
                                 -- Hermann Püterschein