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Jul 30, 2006

The Horizon Awards




At Horizon, Ben Brumfield has been handing out The Horizon Awards for 2006. And the winners are:

I, for the Best Use of Frames, TEAMS Middle English Texts Online.

It [applies] HTML frames to the end-of-book glossary and the footnote/endnote sections of traditional texts in a way that is an immense relief to anyone familiar with chrestomathies. They use the ability to redirect a frame to a different anchor from a hotlink on a different frame to allow the reader to look up annotations and vocabulary without ever leaving his position in the text. The result is an e-text that's actually more readable than the dead-tree version.

See, for example: The Birth of Merlin or The Cloud of Unknowing;

II, for the Most Surreal Programming Language Tutorial, why's (poignant) guide to Ruby.

[Why] manages to integrate cartoon foxes, surreal prose, and morbid anecdotes about his family life into a decent Ruby tutorial.
Could you learn Ruby more quickly elsewhere? Sure. But I'll bet you wouldn't stay up all night reading.
I'll be straight with you. I want you to cry. To weep. To whimper sweetly. This book is a poignant guide to Ruby. That means code so beautiful that tears are shed. That means gallant tales and somber truths that have you waking up the next morning in the arms of this book. Hugging it tightly to you all the day long. If necessary, fashion a makeshift hip holster for Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, so you can always have this book's tender companionship.
and

III, for the Worst Use of Flash for History, flash animation of feud dynamics.

I really love Jesse Byock. His books on Medieval Iceland are excellent, treating the sagas as historical material with a commendable blend of caution and respect. Go buy one, or at least read his prefaces to Hrolf Kraki's Saga and the Volsung Saga online.
With that out of the way, may I suggest that this flash animation of feud dynamics is a bit silly?


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