Hacker News Reader

Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

* ...because they're called folders, and we know how to use them?*

Historically they were called directories, which I would love to see a return to from the wrong and infantilizing "folders".

View on HN

I still call them directories. "Folders" are for toddlers who do not know the tao of unix. So are icons. Real men stare at text all day, eat with their hands and sleep when they're dead. The funny/sad part is that I'm half serious with these statements.

As long as you don't use a sissy language like Pascal I'd say you've earned it.

I use PHP. /cowers in shame

P-H-P... Is that some kind of assembly for the PDP-10? In that case your real-man™ status is safe.

Alright: I generally do call them directories. I grew up in UNIX. But we're talking about icons and UX here. Do you consider the "desktop" to be so infantilizing as well?

1: filesystem > directories > files 2: Desktop > Folders > Documents

They're both models for (basically) the same thing. The technical incorrectness of folder doesn't interfere with usage in real scenarios, unless you expect Average Joe to be structuring data as opposed to, say, collecting media. Granted, if Average Joe had mild OCD and thought of everything he did as indexes and references to some abstract node then directories clearly makes more sense, but that would be a separate system divorced from the desktop abstraction.

Edit: Being young of course none of this is really hammered in by convention– maybe that's why I don't mind the two abstractions coexisting. Even if the terminology originated in a Windows era, it doesn't bother me in the least that Mac (and others) use it as well (for the reasons stated above).

Alright: I generally do call them directories. I grew up in UNIX. But we're talking about icons and UX here. Do you consider the "desktop" to be so infantilizing as well?

Why yes, yes I do. Desktop environments are all attempted answers to the question "why is a computer like a writing desk?" The question is absurd in its own right, but carries additional absurdity baggage such as calling all files "documents". A movie is not a document. A computer program in binary form is not a document.

All of my machines boot into bare-ass window managers -- typically either awesome or WindowMaker. It's simple, cruft-free, and leaves more room for the programs I want to run. Aside from the shell I find an activity-based model for launching programs -- such as found in iOS, Android, OLPC, and even Windows 3.1 for pete's sake -- to be infinitely preferable to the document-centric desktop model, which assumes that the user can't fathom a computer without the machine pretending that it is some older, non-computing, manually-operated piece of office equipment.

Even if the terminology originated in a Windows era -- it didn't. It started with the 1984 Macintosh. Funny that, even Apple is moving toward an activity-based model for iOS.

In that case it seems you've made a great case for why programmers make terrible interfaces and why UX is so important for everyone else. While models can certainly be adapted and evolve (as say iOS vs. a command line), I find it silly to try and put them in the same category. Maybe I'm begging to be flamed, but I don't see it as being much different from arguing over programming paradigms and high vs. low level. Do I really care that if a string is an array of pointers or not while developing a web app? I don't have to "pretend" that the computer knows exactly what I mean when I tell it to puts "hey"– but unless the underlying process has a meaningful effect on the current process, then it's all moot.

The desktop model's heyday may be passing right in front of us, but more likely than not the consequences are going to lead towards even higher level abstractions. For fertility, and for clarity (so that engineers can talk to engineers, and everyone else doesn't get mistaken for a really stupid engineer).

> why is a computer like a writing desk?

Because Poe raved on both?

which I would love to see a return to from the wrong and infantilizing "folders".

Probably too late. I work with nice guys, progammers in their late 20s, mid-30s, who have only ever known those as 'folders'.

By convention at work if it's on a unix-y OS it's a directory, if Windows it's a folder. It's just easier that way.

If you're in your late 20s (and a computer nerd), you probably grew up with DOS: CD, DIR, etc.

Besides, if you're a programmer on Windows, even if you're really young and started with .NET, I'm pretty sure the API and the MSDN docs still consistently use "directory" throughout.

See, eg:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.directory....

Some of us in our 30's still remember them being called drawers on the Amiga.

I need to remind myself to say "folder" because the kids (8-12) I teach probably won't get it if I say "directory"--and then getting them to grasp the concept of local and remote files (for making websites) ... in the presence of the way-too-useful-not-to-have but again completely different concept of "Dropbox folder" ... :D GREAT FUN!! No, really :)

And yes, the floppy disk. Whenever I want to feel old I ask one of them if they know what that icon is, and whether they ever seen one. Best answer: "Yes ... I think I saw one at my grandmother's house ..."

Then I tell them it would fit barely half an mp3 and tell them how many you'd need for the same storage as this 2GB Micro-SD the size of my fingernail :D I love living in the future!

I tend to use "folder" just because it's known by everyone, whereas "directory" is only going to be known by geeks.

Good distinction. I hear Mac folks uses both, usually depending on where they started.

I use both myself, depending on whether I'm using the mouse or a terminal, i.e. I "open a folder" but "list a directory". I've heard others do the same.

I'm 20. I heard both terms used interchangeably while I was learning how to use computers and I use them interchangeably in the course of discussion now.

Directories in Unix were/are files that just contain pointers to other files. So they are a bit like a directory in a building. However, "folder" is probably an improvement if you think in terms of it _containing_ other things. Folders are still recognizable real things. Ask any hipster. Now let's talk about folders that contain other folders and so on. There is where the physical metaphor gets strained. Still, it's fine and quite contemporary.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com