Jeff Atwood has an interesting post over at Coding Horror on the art of hyperlinking. Naturally, he refers to Ted Nelson and Project Xanadu, which I’ve also mentioned in passing before. But Atwood has a link to a 1995 article (in Wired) on Nelson, which I hadn’t read, and which gives a lot of background on the man and his motivations. In turns haunting, despairing or seemingly totally insane, the people who swim through this aquarium are not those with both feet firmly on the ground:
"Nelson records everything and remembers nothing. Xanadu was to have been his cure. To assist in the procedure, he called upon a team of professionals, some of whom also happened to be his closest friends and disciples. In the end, the patient survived the operation. But it nearly killed the doctors".
Definitely worth a read. Atwood rounds off his post with an excellent summary of link usability tips. I wish that more web designers would follow them.
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