4.2 Recording Analyses The toolbox represents a static component of DINDE and remains unchanged from analysis to analysis. The dynamic component lies in the construction and refinement of the analyses themselves. In this subsection we highlight the features of DINDE which allow the analyst to do just that. More detailed discussion can be found in Oldford and Peters (1986b). A statistical analysis in DINDE consists of creating instances of one or more classes to produce DINDE objects that may then be joined together. Analysis maps are built in one of two ways. First, the user can select a class from the toolbox by the user attach the resulting instance of that class anywhere in the map. Alternatively, the user could invoke a method from an existing node which might cause a new object to be created and attached to the selected node. The map always reflects the steps taken in the analysis so far and their logical interconnections. In addition, some partial time ordering of the nodes is implicit in the construction of the map. (All links are in fact directed links. Each node records which nodes it points "backwards" to and which it points "forwards" to. Though not displayed as such, the maps are directed graphs.) DINDE also lets the analyst make and break connections between nodes. In this way, time ordering may no longer be preserved. Inserting a Memo between nodes is a good example where time order might be sacrificed to yield a more understandable analysis. The only requirement of a network link is that it be meaningful to the analyst. Other links exist, possibly unknown to the user, which capture the legitimate causal relationships between DINDE objects. These cannot be made or broken by the user and are displayed in a different kind of DINDE window called a "Causal map" (see Oldford and Peters (1986b)). For complex analyses the analysis map may become rather unwieldy. However, as analyses grow there will likely be segments or subsets of the map, submaps say, which can be thought of as representing small analyses in their own right. As was the case of the DeadEnd analysis of the example, it is helpful to encapsulate the smaller analysis as a single node in the map depicting the larger analysis. As a node in the larger analysis, it is able to respond to methods, can be named and can have commentary added to it just like any other node. Zooming on an AnalysisMap causes the corresponding analysis map to be opened, showing the details of the network it contains (which might in turn contain further AnalysisMaps, etc.). In this way, the analysis can contain many layers of detail, each one of interest at various stages in the analysis (see Oldford and Peters, 1986a, for discussion). We anticipate that the number of layers will depend upon the particular statistical problem being undertaken. Therefore, no limit is placed on the number of layers allowed; it will depend upon the analyst to determine the layering appropriate for the problem. Zooming is thus the vehicle used to descend deeper into the analysis map. At its bottommost level (the MicroscopicView) it displays the variable names and their values (other DINDE objects) and permits the same kind of interaction with these variables as would be allowed in an analysis map. This was demonstrated in Section 3 on a BivariateLeastSquares object. Ascending back up through the analysis is no problem. Any number of maps/levels are displayed on the screen at one time. Windows corresponding to maps need only be shrunk or closed to remove them from display (shrinking replaces the map with a small icon indicating that it is a map, and giving its name if any). The subtleties of managing system resources when there are many windows on the screen is beyond the scope of our discussion, however we note that this issue has been effectively addressed in the Boxer (Abelson and DiSessa, 1985) and Notecards (Xerox, 1985) systems. 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