The Question | Two Paths | Remediation | Recommendations | Works Cited Purity of Native Hypertexts Hypertextual enthusiasts do not agree on the program(s) with which a hypertext should be conceived/composed/constructed.  (A version of this debate, played out in an online discussion, can be read at http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/cw2konline/online99mail/two/0031.html.) One side of the debate, championed in the above discussion by Bradley Dilger, argues that students should learn to write in markup language, not only because of the proprietary idiosyncrasies of browsers and WYSIWYG editors, but also because the "hidden rules" of WYSIWYG editors stifle students' creativity ("HTML, WYSIWYG, and print-based") and that "mystifying the process makes an unknown programmer the master and the student the slave" ("Re: HTML, WYSIWYG, and print-based"). Warning about the power of the ideology of ease, products of which WYSIWYG editors could be considered, Dilger writes in "The Ideology of Ease": I think that the perceived necessity of ease and being 'at ease' can tie students – indeed, all individuals – to the single computing setup one most often uses and is most comfortable with. The losses in that case are flexibility and portability, but self confidence is also undermined. Students can begin to assume they can't get their work done without the computer helping them. That self-imposed devaluation of ability is, for me the most corrosive effect of the ubiquity of the drive for ease.           Others, like me, worry that forcing students to write in code will leave many of them disinterested if not unable to participate, as well as forcing more time devoted to teaching the technology rather than teaching writing (as though form can be separated from content). Questions from colleagues within English/writing departments and outside from information technologies departments ask what the major subject of writing courses should be, teaching writing or teaching technology. And many of us have wondered ourselves what the balance should be. In the end, I've dealt with my own uncertainty, as others in the above debate note, by offering a WYSIWYG editor like MS FrontPage or Netscape Composer as the path of least resistance, but ultimately allowing students to write hypertextually using whatever method, code or WYSIWYG editor, with which they feel most comfortable.