Structural and cognitive problems in providing version control for hypertext

Abstract

This paper discusses issues related to providing version control in hypertext systems. Many of the software engineering issues in versioning also apply to hypertext, but the emphasis on linking and structure in hypertext raises some new problems. The issues can roughly be divided into two categories. Datamodel issues, which will be referred to as structural issues, and user interface issues, which will be referred to aa cognitive issues. Both structural and cognitive issues will be described and divided into simpler problems which will be named and described, and it will be shown that composites serve aa a good starting point for solving both structural and cognitive problems of versioning.