In order to create a page, or, that is, an application, we are going to build up that page, element by element, and the proper way to do that is probably with a script.
As it applies to this, structure addresses the following problem: in order to build or grow our script we are going to need to work on first one part of it and then another, until its many parts are in place - up to some point, because if the script is a growing thing, it is always growing. At any rate, in order to work on some part of our script, we are going to need to see it, that is, to see that part of it. In order to work with a part of the script, we are going to need to be able to interact with that part, and in order to interact with it, we need to see it. This is somewhat metaphorical. To put it in more literal terms, we need to bring that part of the script into the interactive space, which is a space we must be able to see.
The full revelation of structure arrives when, in our minds, the ordering of things suddenly becomes inverted. Before the revelation of structure what we think is that we are going to build up the script, or grow it, by working on its individual parts, which is true, but which is not the first thing we need to do, and is not something we can do until we have done the first part.
Certainly, when we set out to grow an application, we do have in mind some idea about what, in its totality, the application is to be. The great struggle is moving from that idea to in fact coding, and before the revelation of structure we think that coding means constructing the small parts of our program which actually do things, and that we are going to need to code those, and then somehow assemble them into the full application. It never occurs to us to first code the application, and then code its parts. It never occurs to us that this is a possibility.
But the revelation of structure reveals to us that this is not only a possibility, it is a necessity.
Very well, it may be a necessity, but in what sense is it a possibility?
The problem I was presented with was that of growing a development environment. And what became apparent was that the place where I could begin was where I was. And where I was was needing to put into the interactive space, not, actually, some part of my program, but the whole of it. This is where I am, this is the space I can interact with, so I need to put the whole of my program in this space ... to begin.
<div id="thecode">
function codetheDE() {
Problematic.
This space is not sufficiently interactive. I need to insert into this space a more interactive space. In fact, in order to do that, I need to move to another space, one that itself is more interactive. From there my goal is to insert into this space a more interactive component.
In that other space, therefore, I will write:
<div id="newcodespace"></div>
So, I am only able to make a start. But this is consistent with that thing, growth.
It was the evolution of an idea. I began to find, in a primitive but beautiful tool (Blogger), the capacity to move components of a program in and out of the interactive space. It was still not completely clear to me how I was going to assemble parts, in Bloggers space, into wholes, but what the Plaiedians had taught me was ... to play.
The key thing was inserting links. The new code space has been created. Now it's time to refresh this, the original code space.
