Distribution and Concurrency

Hypertexts can be distributed for several reasons: Usually a combination of these reasons leads to the choice for a distributed environment.

Since hypertext has been defined as "a database that has active cross-references and allows the reader to "jump" to other parts of the database as desired", a distributed hypertext shares properties and problems with the field of distributed databases. This is even more so in distributed hypertext systems for cooperative authoring than in systems like the World Wide Web that generally only allow authoring on the local site (and reading from all sites).

When a distributed hypertext is used mostly for reading, there are only a few problems:

Collaborative writing requires more concurrency control features, including locking, notification, transactions and versioning. These issues are mostly related to concurrent authoring, and not as much to distribution.

In order to verify whether you have learned enough from this section you must complete a test on distribution and concurrency in hypertext.