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Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

>File systems are already an abstraction, and they will continue to be useful until someone comes up with a better one

That's the entire point of the article, The author argues the File System metaphor is going away. It doesn't mean the File System itself will cease to exist, or that it won't be ever-present in every major operating system. What the author means is that it just won't be exposed to the end-user.

And good riddance. The File System is by far the most confusing aspect of computing to newcomers and even those that have been working with computers for a while. Understanding directory structure and the way it is organized in any given operating system seems to be a big problem for people.

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> The File System is by far the most confusing aspect of computing

My experience has been the complete opposite. I find the file system, far, far more intuitive than all the ad-hoc ways various applications attempt to manage my "content" for me. With these apps that abstract away the filesystem, you can never really be sure you have the right mental model of your data. The way apps like iTunes store your data is just so opaque.

Indeed, iTunes is the perfect example of this problem. I can't count how many people have come to me utterly confused about how syncing between your hard drive, iOS, the iTunes store, and iCloud works. They can't understand it because Apple imposes an ever-shifting system of abstractions onto your music storage. You don't have music files anymore. You have songs stored in certain libraries, and those libraries can be "synced" with each other in ways that often result in strange error messages and loss of data.

Imagine instead that things worked like the old days: You just have MP3 files, and you can put them in folders. The iPhone, when connected to the computer, can be accessed like any other filesystem. You move files in and out of a folder called iPhone/Music. In this alternate reality, you'd understand exactly what you're doing. You wouldn't have to guess at how "syncing" is going to change the state of your data.

I think this is the best argument against ditching the file system metaphor. Having a generic, well-understood resource like a file-system is the power of general purpose computers. If Apple (or Google) can blur the concept of portable data, they can argue that data is "just too nebulous and complicated" to be useful to you mere mortals.

You're on HN, so I can deduce that you have a very good mental model of how consumer Operating Systems work, this includes the FS. Lots of people have very poor mental models of OSes (and File Systems/Directory organization). This is true for newcomers but also for people who have been working with computers for years.

>The iPhone, when connected to the computer, can be accessed like any other filesystem. You move files in and out of a folder called iPhone/Music.

People have problems with that. You don't, but it's a big issue to a lot of people.

How about this, they turn on iTunes all their iTunes music is available. They turn on music app on their iPhones, and all their music available (streamed or downloaded). Every song they buy, is automatically synced to all their devices.

Which is easier? Which one requires you to understand "syncing", or file systems, or copy-pasting vs. moving, or a thousand other little things that you need to have a handle on, just to listen to music on your devices.

Your model seems easier at first. But it seems to depend on a simplified model of media consumption where the iTunes store is the only source of media. What if I buy audio from someone else? What if I acquire it via a regular web download? What if it's given to me on a USB stick? What if I create audio of my own? What if I have a bunch of audio that fits on my computer, but is too big for my iPhone harddrive, and I want to be able to pick and choose what goes to what device?

As soon as you run into the need to move content seamlessly between programs, devices, and services--in ways the makers didn't necessarily imagine--you need some kind of universal means of interchange. Something that is infinitely flexible and controlled by the user. As it turns out, we've had this for a while: files.

Now, you can ask for tweaks to the way the filesystem is used. Want the primary interface model to be searching, rather than browsing through folders? Ok, that's great. Things like Spotlight are already a step in that direction, and they can be enhanced. Want tagging? Sure! While I don't see it heavily integrated into current operating systems, I'd imagine it would be very doable.

But none of this is incompatible with the current filesystem model. It would just be a layer on top.

>"Imagine ... The iPhone, when connected to the computer, can be accessed like any other filesystem. You move files in and out of a folder called iPhone/Music."

This is exactly how Android works. I plug my Galaxy into my computer and it appears just like any other USB drive. I drag mp3 files, or folders of mp3 files, into my Music folder, and I'm done. Same goes for mp4 videos I might want to watch, or PDF files I might want to read, etc.

Is that not the way iOS devices work?

No, sadly iOS doesn't work this way. Yes, there is a filesystem on an iOS device. But the user doesn't access it directly. Instead, the user must rely on some rather opaque abstractions called "syncing" that Apple has introduced. Syncing in this context basically amounts to copying and deleting files, but iTunes decides what to copy and delete. Sometimes it makes choices you would find counterintuitive. I've definitely seen it ruin people's days.

The whole article is based on this supposition:

> Younger generations .. will [not] care about hierarchically organizing data and content.

Maybe. (nothing to do with younger though) Search/tagging/labeling has come about as close to replacing standard file systems as anything. Google tried this approach with gmail. They came close. They still ended up with some hierarchy structure.

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