What folder did I put that in?
Rob Foster’s recent post /the/path/of/most/resistance is a brilliant write up on the inherent lacking of the visual file system. as he says:
…for the average person, the file system is so complex that everything outside of the desktop and the documents folder appears to be a vast labyrinth which most likely hides booby traps and minotaurs.
I think this is even true for many advanced users—even if they refuse to admit it. Even I have come to realize the more I have begun to use my iPhone, the more I see that I don’t need a file system for most of my tasks. I consider myself an experienced user and even I would love for the file system on my main computer to if not disappear at least further hide itself. Do I need to always have the system folder visible? No. Nor do I really need to see the applications folder as long as I can search and see a list. Actually come to think of it nor do I need the music folder or photos folder. A dedicated music/photo app does a better job sorting those file types then the I would manually creating folders.
The last point says it best. The visual file system is a generalist tool (like the CLI). We’ve moved away from the concept of sitting down to use a computer; instead now, we are sitting down to do a specific task: i.e., write a report, listen to music, post a tweet, check out facebook, watch a show, build a website, etc. The computer itself needs to get out of the stinking way so we can just do what we sit down to do. Having a global visual file system is just more clutter and doesn’t really help any of those tasks—not even webdev.
Yes you heard me: I do not need access to my computer’s file system to do web development. All I need is access to the project’s files on the server and a local store of the same, both of which I really only need to see when I’m in my IDE. I don’t really need to even know where this local store is as long as I can just click on the name of the project and it loads (like Coda and other IDEs). The local store could for all intents just be archive that opens when I open my IDE. Well there is the photoshop graphic editor issue but that could be easily solved by having a list of web projects show up when I “save to web.” You know how much time I’d save if I could just select from a project list whenever I “save to web” rather than have to dig around in my folders for where ever the images folder is for a certain website?
Speaking of, Panic please make an iPad version of Coda!
p.s. this brings to mind one of my gripes about Windows—fonts. To install fonts on OS X you click on it and then click install font. On Windows, even the new Windows 7, you have to copy it in the font folder (usually C:\Windows\Fonts), which is a granted not too hard but it’s still annoying to have to manually dig into the system folder to install a font.
Point taken, but good luck dealing with that web server if it doesn’t have a file system either. And you need to know at least the relative file system layout of the various files you’ve got up in your IDE, right?
I’m a Windows user, so believe me that I’m sympathetic to the idea of never having to open up C:\Program Files\ again for the rest of my life. But I feel like when this idea is taken to its logical conclusion you wind up with something like the iPod, where it’s basically just a little bitty hard drive but you need to go through proprietary software to load and unload it. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I don’t trust application makers enough to relinquish that control.
(Signed, some random internet guy – see you at Balsa Man)
@whir I didn’t say get rid of the file system completely—just hide it away when I don’t need it. When working on a web site, I only need to see the file hierarchy for the web project I’m working on. It’s really nothing different than how I currently work: load Coda (or other IDE), select project, instantly see all local and remote files for the projects, work on project, commit changes using git—yes this is using terminal but even here for most tasks there is little reason I need command line access for anything outside the local and remote folders for the project I’m working on.
Maybe I’m using some bizarro-whacked-out version of Windows 7 (home premium), but to install fonts, I just right click the font file and then click “install,” and sure enough it pops into the folder.
All that aside, I think you make some excellent points about limitations of visual representations of the hierarchy of your sorted hard drive.
At the same time, I think there’s a good bit of abstraction built into modern file systems that let you access just the things you need, specifically the idea of “libraries” in Windows 7, in which you create a view that contains specific elements you’ve either found or have manually placed there. And Mac folks may complain that Vista/7 ripped off the “finder” feature of quick-searching, but I’m very thankful they did, as most businesses I work with are switching to 7 and I no longer have to install grep for windows to find where they accidentally moved their system files.
Good post!