So far seems a fitting phrase. For obvious reasons this project is, to use one of the most overused and usually unbearably trite slogans of the internet, perennially under construction. But the truth of that claim sometimes hits home even harder than expected. While working on other, only partially related, material, I came across a couple of new articles that ask some of the questions that are dealt with here. And of course the questions gets asked: should I include them?, relate to them? change what's been written in order to make use of their insights?

The answer reminds me of a famous letter Frederick Engles sent Karl Marx while Marx was busy writing Capital. The story goes that Engles wrote to tell Marx that not every detail had to be checked and counter-checked, not every footnote researched. After all, Engles noted, the proletariat was waiting impatiently.

In comparison, I'm lucky. All that's waiting is a department that wants to help me finish this project, but won't really mind if I don't. No revolutions will be missed because I've continued to change, refine, add to, and whatever else, this project. But even the never really complete hypertextual document that Bolter wrote about is permitted to set its own limits, and sometimes I'm honestly happy that someone other than me has, in this case, set them.

The list of items to be discussed, the points to be raised, has dwindled. Almost each item has a line through it, denoting either that the topic has been covered (at least once - hypertext seems to make a certain amount of redundancy unavoidable) or deemed unnecessary for inclusion here. The list, of course, doesn't only dwindle. New issues get added, new asides absolutely refuse to be left out. But even these seem to have been dealt with. The end is in sight.

And of course I'm lucky for an additional reason. This review of what the Boidem set out to do and examination of its relative success at meeting those goals; this examination of the ways in which the Boidem has developed and evolved in response to the experience I've gained through writing over three and a half years of columns, may be coming to a close. But writing this part has raised questions and defined topics that can sustain at least another half a year of columns. So as one part draws to a close, another continues with a new sense of purpose.

Go to: Trying to make some sense out of all this, or
Go to: An introduction to the extroduction, or
Go to: Web Essays - The evolution of a (personal?) medium