[NTLK] physical vs. virtual page (was: Pen Thickness Setting)

From: Doug Parker (doug_at_ispinn.com)
Date: Wed Mar 17 2004 - 08:12:39 PST


> Then, when it came time to study for a test or exam,
> I printed the notes out using my LaserWriter NTR.
> It was easier for me to study off of paper than the
> Newton's screen.

That's an interesting point.

I work in a software house. Programmers here regularly page through
thousand-line programs using a browser that only displays 13 lines at a time.
I don't know how they're able to move about the document and remember what it
was they've just reviewed, where it is in the document, or how it relates to
the remaining 987 lines that are unseen. I don't use their programming
tools--I'm a visual programmer. It's confounding.

Were I to try to remember where I was on a long note (essentially one long
virtual page), I would quickly get lost. Printing on paper seems to add enough
structure to the viewed content that I'm able to remember more of what I've
read and where I've been. (Let's see, I think it was on the top left of page
near the middle of the document. If I were to review the note on the Newton,
there might not be any page boundaries, so I might lose that crutch.)

I suspect that children growing up in the internet age, where physical page
boundaries are blurred or eliminated, will be more accustomed to dealing with
the difference in the presentation of information than those of us from the
old school, the paper-page-at-a-time school.

YMMVOC.

Doug Parker

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