Comment by drcube | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drcube | Hacker News Reader

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This is probably the reason I will never buy an idevice. The very first app I downloaded on my Android phone was a file explorer.

I can't imagine any other way to interact with data than as individual files in some kind of hierarchy. What is iTunes but a specialized file browser that happens to have a built in music player?

The need for a single, general purpose program for performing actions that are generic for all files just makes sense to me. Say I have a bunch of pictures, a few albums, a movie and an ebook I'd like to share with my mom. Do you really think it would be easier to open four different applications, which probably have four different sets of "sharing" features and four distinct user interfaces? Or to just copy and paste from my hard drive into her thumb drive?

Speaking of which, is this actually a problem? I don't know anybody who has difficulty with the file/folder metaphor. And it isn't like I just hang around technical folks. I know lots of people who could use a "computers for dummies" book.

Which makes me think the real "problem" with file system behavior is that it facilitates file sharing. If people forget they have a disk drive filled with files, and think instead of their "iTunes multimedia blob", then the FBIAA can just lean on MS and Apple to "program out the piracy". Brilliantly evil.

I don't know anybody who has difficulty with the file/folder metaphor.

Half the world has an IQ below 100. Computers need to help and serve them, too.

The threshold for comfortably managing hierarchical file systems is around 100 IQ. For doing it well is several points higher.

And eliminating access to the file system makes app developers get creative about inventing new ways to make things easier for users. A lot of data is relational and not compatible with the file metaphor. Some data is a net of objects (not as much as OO language designers seem to think). New ways to interact with those are valuable.

Of course, the flexibility of the file system has a lot of advantages. It invites a powerful and uniform set of tools that can make it even more flexible. That's why it continues to be useful. Nevertheless, other ideas, like relational data as a universal system service, are setting in to give it competition.

> The threshold for comfortably managing hierarchical file systems is around 100 IQ. For doing it well is several points higher.

Do you have any citations for that?

> I don't know anybody who has difficulty with the file/folder metaphor.

Then you should step out of your cave. You and I like file system, but 99.3% of the world's population (who don't have time to fiddle around with computers and just want to get their things done), hate file systems, and usually have disgusting desktop, documents, downloads and music folders.

Maybe you know different people than I, but most of the non-technical computer users I know, when asked about where is a document, will answer "Oh I saved my curriculum in Word" instead of a folder.

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