Hypertext Version Management in an Actor-based Framework

In this work we discuss a number of issues for the design of hypertext systems in an actor-based model of computation. We examine how the ”traditional” basic concepts which are at the basis of the design of hypertexts can be re-visited under a new perspective of collaborative expert actors. The paper presents how some principles of high level concurrent programming are applied as new methodologies for the design and realization of complex software, such as hypertext systems. By adopting an actor-based framework, we gained powerful control on the version management, which presents considerable difficulties in realization of hypertext systems. In this paper we present an initial prototype implemented in a concurrent object-oriented language, realized on top of Common Lisp Object System.