This page will be updated periodically to contain a report on recent progress in the development of the ESSAYS System --- to indicate both recent developments and anticipated near future developments. The mostrecent developments are noted first below; then earlier developments.
In July 2003 the hyper-linked set of brief essays was created to serve as a way for interested people to get an impression of what the style and scope of the ESSAYZ System is. Special brief essays were written to serve as the web pages to which unique links could be made for many of the keywords which appear in the longer/regular essays. The vast majority of regular essays are associated with multiple keywords --- because they deal with a multitude of inter-related concepts. Thus it is impossible to have unique linkages between individual keywords and individual essays.
Work during 2002 focused upon organizing the files of the ESSAYSSystem so that they can be uploaded to web sites and downloaded from web sites and installed --- in ways which will make it possible to distribute the ESSAYS System coherently on compact-disks, CDs, for distribution through such disks; as well as via downloading the files from web sites.
The intent is that once the ESSAYS System has been installed on any user's computer, it will be possible for the user to create on their computer an exact image of a distribution CD in a subdirectory of their computer --- which can then be copied to a compact-disk if the user has a CD-writing drive. A validity check is being generated so that the user will be told if the ESSAYS System copy which they have includes all the necessary files in good form --- regardless of whether they have come from a web-download or a compact distribution disk.
As new essays are written they are being edited and uploaded at least once every six months; e.g., during January for the previous last half-calendar- year, and sometime in the late summer for the first-half of the current- calendar-year.
During the fall and winter of 1999-2000 the major development has been the reprograming the ESSAYS System so as to direct all output to a drive designated by the user who has downloaded the ESSAYS System and is using it on a local computer. This makes it possible for network users (such as students on campus networks) to avoid writing to the hard-drive of a PC in a student computer lab --- where hard-drives are often locked. Newtwork users can run the ESSAYS System entirely within their network account.
The other recent development has been moving the ESSAYS System so that it can be accessed at the simple address:
References to previous addresses are now transfered to the new address.
As of January 23, 2001 close to 6,800 essays are available for download. Typical essays are about one page long. There is a text file containing essays written each month, except for during 1973 for which here is no record of the months of writing of essays. Also, there are some later months during which no essays were written, or the essays written have been lost. Many of early dates of writing are only approximate.
Work will begin soon facilitating the distribution of the ESSAYS System on CD disks. In association with that data structures will be created which will record the similarity of patterns of key-words within the texts of all pairs of essays. About 36 million such pairs will exist. Those data structures will make it possible for users to list titles of essays in order of their similarity or dis- similarity to a standard essay or standard set of essays. Currently bibliographic references are followed by the titles of the most recently written essays --- moving then back to the titles of the older essays.
As time permits the author will respond to comments and suggestions sent to the following address: