> Let’s think about a link. Many pages can point to a single page. Many-to-one. One-to-many. So, we could achieve tagging with links by listing all backlinks to a given page. Tags are just backlinks to pages that don’t exist.
Does this make sense to anyone? This reads to me like GPT-3 wrote it, a simulacrum of a deep thought...
Yes, although it could be stated more clearly. The “pages that don’t exist” are conceptually a virtual page for each tag that links to every page that includes said tag. This is pretty obvious to anyone with some experience with contemporary note taking apps since they generate backlink pages dynamically.
you can't have a backlink without a link. you can't have a link without a page. so you can't have a backlink to a "page that doesn't exist" because without a page, there is no link.
the right way to say this is, "a tag is a special kind of page", which is far more boring (like.. didn't del.icio.us do this years ago?), but way more understandable.
In fact most of this article could be summed up as: most interfaces can be represented as a page of links.
Does this make sense to anyone? This reads to me like GPT-3 wrote it, a simulacrum of a deep thought...