T.H. Nelson’s “Complex Information Processing: A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing and the Indeterminate” was incredibly detailed and informative. Throughout the piece, Nelson primarily focusses on design of a system and then builds upon the early groundwork laid by Vannevar Bush. I’m glad to have read Vannevar Bush’s article beforehand and have it fresh in my mind while reading this because Nelson does reference the article, and more specifically the memex, a few times. He also references ‘Bush trails’ when explaining linking outlines. So having read Bush’s article, I had a good background and foundation for Nelson’s paper.

One of the main points Nelson discusses is an evolutionary list file, or ELF. ELFs seem clean and organized, which stick to Nelson’s idea of being simple and not complicated. There are three components to ELFs: an entry, list, and link. Entries are essentailly the objects that are being created or altered. I thought the list was very much like a folder on a computer because they contain all the objects or entries. The link is like a pathway to the objects, but they lead to any other entry from any other list. I found that to be very useful because then it’s open to all other lists.

I liked how the uses for the system are very open-ended. Nelson even writes, “Remember that there is no correct way to use the system. Given its structure, the user may figure out any method useful to him. A number of different arrangements can be constructed in the ELF, using only the basic elements of entry, list and link.”

Nelson’s writing was not as complicated as Bush’s; however, some concepts were a little difficult to fully comprehend. But because Nelson stressed the importance of a simplicity in programming, he was also fairly simple in explaining terms. This is seen when he states, “The basic arrangement chosen for these purposes is an information structure I will refer to as zippered lists. (We might call it permutation-invariant one-for-one inter-list entry-linking, but that is not necessary.)” I actually found that a little funny.

Although the technical terms were a little hard to fully understand, I found Nelson’s work to be very informative. I’m more interested in this field than I had previously thought!