Theodor Holm Nelson (født 1937) er amerikansk sociolog, filosof og pioner i informationsteknologi. Han skabte begrebet „hypertext“ i 1963 og offentliggjorde det i 1965. Han opfandt også andre ord, bla. hypermedia, transclusion, virtuality, intertwingularity and teledildonics. Hovedlinjen i hans arbejde har været at gøre computerteknologi let tilgængelig for alle. Hans motto er:

<blockquote>Brugergrænsefladen bør være så enkel, at den i en nødsituation kan forstås af en nybegynder på 10 sekudner.</blockquote>

Nelson grundlagde Xanadu-projektet i 1960. Målet var at skabe et computernetværk med en simpel brugergræsneflade. Anstrengelserne blev dokumenteret i 1974 i hans bøger Computer Lib og Dream Machines og i 1981 i Litterære maskiner. En stor del af sit voksne liv har han brugt på at arbejde med og fremme Xanadu.

Af en række årsager, der stadig debatteres, blev Xanadu-projektet aldrig en succes. Journalisten Gary Wolf offenligjorde en ikke særligt flatterende historie om Nelson og Xanadu i juni 1995 udgaven af Wired magazine. Nelson udtrykte sin afsky på sin web-site og truede med at sagsøge Gory Jackal. http://ted.hyperland.com/whatsay/.

Nogle elementer af Xanadu er ved at blive virkeliggjort med Tim Berners-Lee opfindelse af World Wide Web. Webbet skylder Xanadu meget for inspiration, men Nelson bryder sig ikke om World Wide Web, XML og al indlejret markup og han betragter Berners Lees arbejde som en oversimplificering af sit eget arbejde.

HTML er lige hvad vi prøver at undgå; altdi brudte links, links der kun går udad, citater du ikke kanfølge til deres oprindelse, ingen versionsstyring, ingen rettighedsstyring. Ted Nelson (Ted Nelson one-liners)

'Theodor Holm Nelson' (born June 17 1937) is an American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the term „hypertext“ in 1963 and published it in 1965. He also is credited with first use of the words hypermedia, transclusion, virtuality, intertwingularity and teledildonics. The main thrust of his work has been to make computers easily accessible to ordinary people. His motto is:

<blockquote>A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.</blockquote>

Ted Nelson promotes four maxims: „most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong“. date=June 2007

Career

Nelson founded Project Xanadu in 1960 with the goal of creating a computer network with a simple user interface. The effort is documented in his 1974 book Computer Lib/Dream Machines and the 1981 Literary Machines. Much of his adult life has been devoted to working on Xanadu and advocating it.

The Xanadu project itself failed to flourish, for a variety of reasons which are disputed. Journalist Gary Wolf published an unflattering history, The Curse of Xanadu[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html], on Nelson and his project in the June, 1995 issue of Wired magazine. Nelson expressed his disgust on his website[http://ted.hyperland.com/whatsay/], referring to Wolf as a „Gory Jackal“, and threatened to sue him.

Nelson claims some aspects of his vision are in the process of being fulfilled by Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web. However, Nelson says he dislikes the World Wide Web, XML and all embedded markup, and regards Berners-Lee's work as a gross over-simplification of his own work:

<blockquote>HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT&mdash; ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management. &ndash; Ted Nelson ([http://xanadu.com.au/ted/TN/WRITINGS/TCOMPARADIGM/tedCompOneLiners.html Ted Nelson one-liners ]) </blockquote>

Nelson is working on a new information structure, ZigZag, which is described on the Xanadu project website, which also hosts two versions of the Xanadu code.

He is currently a philosopher and visiting professor at Oxford University working in the fields of information, computers, and human-machine interfaces.

Education and awards

Nelson earned a Bachelor's degree in philosophy from Swarthmore College in 1959, a Master's degree in sociology from Harvard University in 1963 and a Doctorate in Media and Governance from Keio University in 2002.

In 1998, at the Seventh WWW Conference in Brisbane, Australia, Ted was awarded the Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award. He told the audience that it was the first award that he had ever received for his work.

In 2001 he was knighted by France as „Officier des Arts et Lettres“. In 2004 he was appointed as a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and associated with the Oxford Internet Institute, where he is currently conducting his research.

He is the son of the late Emmy Award-winning director Ralph Nelson and the Academy Award-winning actress Celeste Holm. His ethnicity is primarily Norwegian-American.

Bibliography