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I don't mind searching to find what I want, but I find myself uncomfortable if I can't then see where it "really" is. In a universe with just tags/labels, it doesn't feel like it's anywhere.

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In case you hadn't considered the alternative position, I get nervous deciding where something should "Really" be when that's based on a number of things, e.g. there's a multitude of hierarchies I could pick when organizing a music collection, and none is inherently correct over the others. Some things defy a hierarchical structure entirely. (I hate having a "Various Artists" folder, and those albums not being visible under each artist. I have considered symlinks, but too often software treats these as multiple copies.)

I can avoid that by having my files in a content-based-addressing pool with metainformation.

How many files do you have? And how many projects?

I'm not organized by nature, but I need some kind of hierarchy for my computer files. There's too much.

Trees and hashes both scale to any size, it's about their performance based on how you access and modify them that matters.

Some collections of my files are accessed entirely hierarchically, others are not, I don't think I should have to pick a single paradigm for all my files.

You hit the nail on the head for me. Exactly how I feel.

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