I just hate these things where people use the terms "folder" and "directory" as if they were the same thing. They are not and I wish some people would wise up to that.
Yes. This is a pet peeve of mine.
Yes. This is a pet peeve of mine.
Fairly easy to look up and I just did , https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5078676/what-is-the-diff... but I agree , comments like this come across as smug and unhelpful. A few short lines explaining and a link would have been much helpful and greatly improves the quality of discussion on this site.
> > There is a difference between a directory, which is a file system concept, and the graphical user interface metaphor that is used to represent it (a folder).
So there really is no difference in a technical (programmers talking) context. :)
There are exceptions where a GUI folder doesn't have a corresponding directory (e.g. "Control Panel") or when a directory doesn't appear as a GUI folder (a mounted volume, maybe?).
But if you're just talking about regular everyday use cases for organizing files, folders are directories and directories are folders. In those cases, there's zero reason to distinguish the two, no matter whether you happen to be using a GUI or terminal at the moment.
No computer system, from the command line, has a command that allows you to "make_folder" but every system has a "make_directory" (mkdir) or "change_directory" (cd) and so on. If there is little to no difference, then why is this so?
Why are there no folders from the command line?
No I didn't. I listed the exceptions where they are not the same thing. The fact that they're exceptions implies the existence of a rule, which is that they're usually the same.
Generally speaking, every Mac and Windows system I use, when I create a directory, I see a folder created in the GUI. And when I create a folder in the GUI, I see a directory created in the terminal.
So pretty sure that, aside from rare exceptions, they're identical and synonymous. So as long as you're not dealing with an exceptional situation, the terminology is literally interchangeable.
> Why are there no folders from the command line?
For historical terminology reasons, mostly. By the time GUI's introduced a new terminology, all the terminal commands had long since been named.
I really don't understand what overall point you're trying to make. But if you create a directory in the terminal that shows up in the GUI as a folder, it's 100% perfectly correct to say you created a folder in the terminal. Because you did.
A folder does not exist without a GUI. A folder "might" represent a clickable interface that shows the same contents as a directory but a browser will read the contents of that directory using pathnames and not folders.
And mounting a disk drive onto a folder makes no sense at all.
Your "for historical reasons" is a made up reason unless you can point to an authoritative source for that. If nothing else, the source to Wikipedia in this thread says what I say and not what you wrote.
Of course you can create a folder without a GUI, because in all cases but a few exceptions, a folder is a directory. "mkdir" creates a folder, regardless of the name of the command. When I load my GUI later, I see the folder.
Until now, I have never knowingly met anybody who thought there was any value in drawing a distinction between the two for the basic purposes of routine file organization. So I think you're fighting a lost cause here.
Good luck with your crusade though! Sorry our usage of the term "folder" bothers you so much.
But doesn't that prove the concept that they're the same thing? If they were different things, surely there would be a different command for creating a folder and versus creating a directory. But there's just one command, and nobody is going to make a command called `mkdirakafol` ("make directory a.k.a. folder"). Sometimes multiple names can mean the same thing.
Like, a "trunk" and a "boot" can refer to the same thing. So what you just said is like "my car has an Open Trunk button, not an Open Boot button, so surely those are different concepts."
I've fallen for xkcd 386...
Bonus points if you can find any kind of modern user that knows the difference between a FILE and a FOLDER (directory) ..
Do you mount a disk drive onto a folder? How does that make sense?
Yes? It looks exactly the same as a folder in the UI either way.
Why does even Windows use both terms if, as some want to claim, they have the same meaning? Why does Wikipedia state they are not the same thing?