Right; this is the argument for having separate "in" and "out" portals.
That was actually the original design; the single-kind-of-portal design
is for conceptual elegance, and to minimize the number of doors people
have to build in. I waver back and forth between the schemes...
>It is for this reason that we should consider a more concrete,
>well-defined coordinate system. Yes, this would mean a lot of work. But
>for the end user (IMHO) a Cyberspace system more parallel to the Real
>World(tm) than to the WWW paradigm makes sense.
Not clear to me that you're right. IMO, the well-defined-coordinate-system
fetish is a relatively new thing, not intrinsic to human nature. I think
that, so long as there is a moderate amount of reproduceability, and the
thing passes sanity checks (ie, when I walk through a door, I can walk
back through it again), it'll satisfy most peoples' intuition just fine.
And the potential structural gains are *enormous*...
-- Justin
Random Quote du Jour:
"My thought would be that kingdoms are an excellent source of old Dukes,
Countesses with a seventh Dan in tea party, Laurels who have a well
developed 'not hurt but terribly, terribly sad' look, and Pelicans
(and anyone else willing to try) who can convincingly explain the
necessity of some filling out of forms."
-- Graydon