Yesterday I wrote a howto. Nothing new about that, I've been writing howto's since I started programming many years ago.  

What is new is that the process was so much simpler than it's ever been before.  

Here's what I did... 

1. Navigate to the My Sites section of my outline. 

2. Press Return. 

3. Enter the title of the howto. 

4. Press Return and Tab. 

5. Enter a subhead. 

6. Press Return and Tab. 

7. Enter a section. (A few paragraphs.) 

8. Press Return and Back-tab. 

9. Enter a subhead title.  

Etc etc. 

That's how I wrote the document.  

Now to save it. 

1. Click on the title headline. 

2. Add a nodetype, value = "howto". 

3. Add a domain attribute (left blank here because the contents of the howto is still private). 

4. Click the Save button. 

In the browser I went to the domain. Boom. There it was. It just worked.  

This isn't the first time we've gotten to such a place. MORE, circa 1987, had hierarchic rules that worked the same way. I could specify a style at the root level, and all the subtext would inherit it, unless it was overridden by a more deeply nested rule. That way you could use MORE to store not just a single presentation, but a whole library of presentations. Or a library of libraries. 

Now we're writing publicly. But the same idea applies. Why should I have to start a new document just because I'm starting a new web page. Use the outline to organize it all. As a side-benefit, my web presence is nicely organized. Another thing I've always wanted. 

I've been trying to find a way to explain to programmers why this is so cool. Our users already get it. But it hit me, this is just like object-oriented programming, without the programming.