Talk:ZigZag (software)

Overly fixated on the spreadsheet comparison?

Phrasing like "deconstructs the spreadsheet" (etc, etc) makes it sound as if Nelson started with a spreadsheet and set out to improve on that... This is not how I understood it: He envisioned a general information-storage architecture, just as much a competitor / alternative / replacement for word processors, e-mail address books, or genealogy databases — and, above all, for the World Wide Web! — as for spreadsheets. The whole "spreadsheet" metaphor is probably an artifact of trying to explain the basic concept of cells and their "neighbours" in terms people may be at least passingly familiar with. And, sure, that's also what an encyclopedia article should do, I'm not denying that... But preferably not in a way that gives people the impression that's the main purpose of the whole thing, when it (AFAICT) wasn't. -- CRConrad (talk) 13:57, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

In this video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n22A-Say7do>, Ted Nelson introduces ZigZag, and begins the video by comparing it to a spreadsheet. (So the comparison to a spreadsheet is linked to Nelson.) He follows by comparing it to a relational database. 209.183.136.7 (talk) 23:20, 28 December 2022 (UTC)