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> Regular users are consistently struggling with low-level concepts like 'files' and similar remnants of trying to emulate desktop metaphors from the workplaces of the 80ies.

This is revisionist computing history of a sort that is becoming more common these days as certain people retire.

The concept of files predates the concept of "a desktop" by decades. There is a much deeper metaphor to "files" than there is to "files on a desktop", and one that is hard to dispense with even if you have extraordinarily smart search available.

> Mobile OSs have been rather successful in getting rid of this implementation detail.

Almost entirely by shrinking the scope of what can be done to a point that would be useless for what is currently understod as a desktop computer. You want that model? Get a big, powerful tablet.

I don't like hero worship, but I happened to hear a Steve Jobs clip the other day, where he said: a great idea is only 10% what you think it's worth; the 90% is the implementation details and craftsmanship that goes into it.

I don't want an OS that "doesn't make me pick between iCloud or ~/Documents". That just means turning macOS into ChromeOS. An OS with just a search bar would break a ridiculous amount of uses, from shared computers or cloud drives where everyone knows to put the files in the right folder, but your colleagues have weird naming conventions, so you can't search by name, but if the files were side-by-side it would be common sense which one you want; to the dangers of ambiguity between cloud and local storage; to the reality that many use personal computers for work and would get fired if certain personal files/media showed up in a File Search for work documents. You imply that iOS-style file management is easier for average users, but at a previous workplace, there was a central Mac that had important text files with .odt extensions, all organised on the desktop, that opened in TextEdit since LibreOffice/OpenOffice was for some reason never installed. How would TextEdit show those files if all you had was the Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion-esque TextEdit iCloud open box? The documents wouldn't show up, since it would only show TextEdit documents, i.e. rich text files (.rtd). If it makes sense to keep multiple types of files together, like text files and spreadsheets, you'd have to put them in a folder, not app-specific storage. But that sounds identical to what we have now. How would I open any random local text file in Google Docs? Wouldn't that be a huge privacy flaw, that Apple would never build into Safari anyway? You'd just end up with silos within each app, with no idea how to move things around, since I think the iOS metaphor is actually less intuitive than putting folders on your desktop with things inside them.

Everyone likes imagining better ways to manage files, but no one has been able to come up with one that's intuitive, not even Apple with iOS. The only reason they get away with it, is very few people actually ever interact with files on iOS. Instagram, Snapchat, Reminders, Clock, Safari don't involve documents, and for many people, that's what they use their phone for, period. Google Docs are in the app; how would they open in any other app anyway? As for iPad users, people might create something in ProCreate, and then export it. I don't think iPads are used as file storage devices, just as inputs to bring somewhere else.

It's hilarious, so many people seem to want to get rid of files and folders, but every single development team I've ever been on has a ton of documentation, working documents, prototypes, etc. organized in... get this: a hierarchical structure. Files within folders within other folders, and so on. Whether literal filesystem or web-based interface or whatever. I've never once seen a project of any sort happen without some kind of structure and hierarchy in the data that everyone is working within. Even all the cloud stuff implements these paradigms (is there any that doesn't?)...

For working on computers, "getting rid of the concept of files" is just not a realistic idea whatsoever. It's no surprise the metaphor has worked for 50+ years.

Yeah I agree. I mean what other option is there? A flat space where you search for everything and hope you remember the right words for it?

IMO, probably the best replacement for deeply nested folder would be tags.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/tag-files-and-folde...

> I happened to hear a Steve Jobs clip the other day, where he said: a great idea is only 10% what you think it's worth; the 90% is the implementation details and craftsmanship that goes into it.

I like your comment, and I would LOVE a source on the quote!

https://vimeo.com/475108226 at 35:30

>Mobile OSs have been rather successful in getting rid of this implementation detail.

Dear God, the lack of proper file management on mobile is absolutely awful and makes so many things harder than they need to be. I really hope desktop OSes don't go down that path.

>we should be able to have OSs that are Digital Assistants.

Please don't touch my OS.

>Regular users are consistently struggling with low-level concepts like 'files' and similar remnants of trying to emulate desktop metaphors from the workplaces of the 80ies.

I'm going to make argument that regular users are struggling with directory structures because of how OSes are increasingly "helpful". In DOS 2.0, it was simple: each physical disk has filesystem with tree structure, no shortcuts, no symlinks. I doubt anybody was confused by that. But let's pretend I don't know about usual quirks and see how that goes in Windows: where the hell is "Desktop"? Does everything is contained inside it? After all, "My Computer" icon is there, and clicking "dir up" in My Computer goes back to Desktop! But then, Desktop itself is contained in My Computer, so hmm... And why on Desktop there are shortcuts there that.. doesn't seem to be in Desktop directory? Ah, because they are in some magic place "C:/Users/Public/Desktop". And by the way, why it is usually called "Pulpit" (localized name in my language), but when in path it's not localized and just "Desktop"? Where my browser stores browsing history? Surely it must be in some file? Right, probably in user directory... wait, how do I open user directory? Documents folder surely must be stored inside it, so let's click "dir up" there. Uh, it went back to dreaded My Computer. Fine, I will go there manually through C:/Users/. So the browser files will be in AppData.. but it isn't here.. ah right, it is hidden for some reason. But there's still something fishy about the Documents, it doesn't behave like a normal directory. Let's see in Properties dialog, there's Location tab, so it looks like it works like shortcut to it, simple enough. Uh.. actually no, because it is part of "Libraries" mechanism, and is actually configured in AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Libraries. Documents (and other libraries) might be actually configured to squash multiple directories in their virtual view. Now, why OneDrive is another special directory, and even worse, MS Office seems to have special relationship with it? And so on and so on...

Really, it's no wonder that most regular people are confused about it.

You can have my thoughtfully organized directories of hundreds of files made by multiple programs that have no idea they’re all part of a single project when you can pry them from my cold dead hands.

A human assistant would have endless trouble with that “plan a trip to Dallas” request. When/why? For how long? What kind of accommodation? Your preferences may vary a lot depending on the purpose of the trip, budget, and so on. It’s a pipe dream.

On not having files, you may not remember that iOS did go that route until ~2018, and it was terrible. Tying documents to a single app, proprietary formats and awkward sharing facilities made for a very poor experience. I’m glad they returned to sanity and introduced the Files app.

As others have mentioned, a lot of these concepts predate modern OSes and are tied to universal HCI principles. Some of the best work in the area was done in the 60s.

As you say, we're getting exactly these advances with phone and tablet OSs. iPads are becoming a dream appliance in the ways you mention and capture 90% of the average person's computing needs.

Regular computers have to maintain some backward compatibility and it's nice for power users to still be allowed to fiddle with file extensions and system internals.

But no one uses tablets in practices. Everyone I know who bought an iPad or iPad pro use it for a bit and then it just takes dust.

It would be good to have a really solid answer about why that happens.

I had an android tablet at some point and... it was nice to read comic books on it I guess ? But whenever I wanted to do something a bit productive - I remember trying to do mindmaps, bibliography work and similar research-ey stuff it was painful and I ended redoing everything on a computer with keyboard shortcuts. On the other hand my Remarkable is seeing a great deal of work... Drawing little schemas on it is incredible.

Correct. Or they become Netflix viewers, or are used to doodle in Procreate or something. I am yet to meet a person who uses the OS (as opposed to specific apps) for something complicated. Apple loves to show how easy it is to drag an image from Email in to Pages. But nobody uses an iPad for Pages. And even that simple interaction is still somehow easier on a Mac.

The latest MacBook gives me hope that post-Ive Apple is serious about giving their customers what they want. I would love to see an iPadOS for people who do actual work one day.

Note: I'm trying to make a distinction between iPadOS and the apps on an iPad. Plenty of apps are useful for actual work. However the OS itself is very much a hinderance.

People who want to use Pages in iPad... for the sake of your life, please don't do it. It is quite... aggravating trying to move that freaking table from few cm across and it ended up 3 inches away. My forehead vein was ready to burst that day. It is not worth the experience to use it on the iPad unless for a simple essay or letter which should be fine. But if you try to go beyond that, make sure you remember to go to your happy place so often when you try.

"OS, not apps" is a kind of weird distinction for a lot of users, though. I used an iPad as my only portable computer for a bit over a year, so I get what you're saying -- there were definitely things that were easier to do on macOS than iOS, and those things tended to revolve around system-level features that were present in AppKit but not UIKit. But it was also surprising to me how little there was that I couldn't do on the iPad.

HN users tend to understandably be focused on development tools, where iOS really is pretty handicapped. (I suspect this is only going to change through moving development environments fully into the cloud. But there are an awful lot of people who use computers for an awful lot of things who probably could replace those computers with iPads already. (Do keep in mind that one user's "doodle in Procreate" is another user's "bring in several thousand a month on an art Patreon.")

Perhaps I am the only one who use iPad daily. I uses it for work and video streaming from my PC folder share. Still using it for 4 years and onward.

> "iCloud" or "OneDrive" or "C:\" or "Document" or "Desktop".

Desktops have been slowly edging in that direction, but I don't think it helps. I guess it depends on what kind of brain you have, but I can't do this. I need something spatial, a quite rigid structure. I use shallow hierarchies (folders!).

If you're too dumb to understand a fundamental concept like file extensions, which has been around for decades, and remains at the core of desktop computing, you should not be allowed near computers, and you definitely have no say in what computers are, should do, or should work like.

This is an elitist view and there is nothing wrong with that. Don't dumb down desktop computers for those of us who like and understand them as they are. Everyone else can use an iPad.

I can imagine a few reasons for such stagnation:

- Business: there isn't a strong business need to re-think the desktop UI. There are needs on mobile and the web, but improving the classic desktop doesn't give a competitive advantage (unless you can combine it with the web and mobile, which is exactly what Apple, Google, and MS are trying to do).

- Developers: you need to attract developers to your platform too. Devs will ignore your unique features if they are not attractive enough to justify the change, and they are not cross-platform. Examples:

  - Smalltalk envs are like an extremely hackable Desktop OS (eg. Squeak or Pharo). They don't use the files as the storage unit, and the technology to scale the object image existed for a long time (eg. GemStone/St). The first complaint that you'll hear about St is: "where are my files and version control?". There is no interest in the dev community to make files go away because it breaks the tools that you use every day. 

  - macOS has features to support version history, or conveniently handle files (eg. auto-save, rename in place, cloud support). But, those features are not cross-platform, and they are ignored by the cross-platform "pro" software: VSCode, JetBrains IDEs, Adobe Products, Figma.

These two barriers are big enough to make any improvement incremental instead of revolutionary. Both iOS and Android are different from the usual desktop UI because of the form-factor (small screen, touch, low power, etc), and the lack of legacy (but people still wanted Flash when iOS came out, and Apple had to add Files to make the interoperability easy).

Maybe the next generation "desktop" is not a classic desktop but an evolution of the web browser. The sad part is that all the new environments (iOS, iPadOS, Android, ChromeOS, SaaS apps) are extremely closed and hostile to tinker with the system.

> The first complaint that you'll hear about St is: "where are my files and version control?"

More like "Where's the program?"

Early '80s Smalltalk did use change-sets in files.

p462 "Smalltalk-80 The Interactive Programming Environment"

https://rmod-files.lille.inria.fr/FreeBooks/TheInteractivePr...

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You're right, Smalltalk is about "modifying objects that represent classes and methods" rather than editing files.

So versioning means fine-grained "classes and methods" rather than versioning files.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mastering_ENVY_Develope...

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You're right, we know what we like - we like what we know.

So (Pharo) "Manage Your Code with Git and Iceberg"

https://books.pharo.org/booklet-ManageCode/pdf/2020-05-12-Ma...

This wasn’t a critique to Pharo. Don’t get me wrong I worked using Smalltalk professionally for 3 years, and I contributed a small library to Squeak and Pharo.

My comment was about how difficult is to innovate in areas like the file system.

Pharo had to use git because is popular, not because is the best way to handle object versioning (eg Envy was much better at handling the history of your classes)

I understood that the Smalltalk remarks were kind-of incidental to the point you wished to make.

So just some clarification for readers stuck at the big-blob Smalltalk no-version-control meme.

It doesn't help that outside of computer use, file means a collection of documents (e.g., a case file).

Sounds you should try using a meme computer called iPad

Write a spec and seek funding :)

That might be true on iOS, but on android we actually have a file system and it's great, it's one of the primary reasons I have preferred android for years.