OnContext

ThoughtStorms Wiki

Taking some links from http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/ConText including one on "context" as used by ChristopherAlexander

Context and SmallerPieces

The process hinted in GranularityOfScholarlyWriting might be more general. Academic documents were a heavy read because they needed to contain a lot of context because the cost of aquiring and reading them was high. This led to a certain PositiveFeedback :

  • the heavier the document became ->
  • the higher the cost of reading it ->
  • the more complete it needed to be (more context it needed to contain and explain) ->
  • the heavier it was

An environment like the web which makes acquiring documents easy, means that documents need to contain less context, they can look it up or acquire it from elsewhere.

This should hold for pretty much any large chuck of stuff, and is why better (easier / cheaper) communication networks lead to SmallerPieces