Re: How to ftp data from linux machine

From: LEE Sau Dan (danlee_at_informatik.uni-freiburg.de)
Date: 12/04/03 

Date: 04 Dec 2003 14:44:43 +0100

>>>>> "Roger" == Roger Leigh <${roger}@invalid.whinlatter.uklinux.net.invalid> writes:

    Roger> For a strict GUI environment "folder" makes sense

I don't think so.

    Roger> (it's a thing you put pieces of paper in),

So, why don't they also call files "paper"? Why isn't a disk drive
called a "cabinet"? And when do you put real-world folders into
folders into folders?

I believe a half-baked cake is not better than no cakes at all.

    Roger> whereas "directory" implies a list like the phone book,
    Roger> Yellow Pages, etc.

It is a list: a list of files and other directories. Of course,
normal lists won't "contain" other lists, only references to them.

    Roger> The metaphor falls over when you put folders /inside/ other
    Roger> folders, since in real life there is a limit to how much
    Roger> you can stuff inside a piece of folded cardboard.

When the metaphor breaks, doesn't it cause more confusions than not?

A few years ago, I read a web page about how bad the "trash can"
metaphor is on the Apple desktop, when a SINGLE trash can is actually
implemented as SEPARATE hidden directories on different drives. Many
users are confused when they tried to free up some space on their
floppies by moving the files in the floppy into the trash can. They
didn't know that the disk space occupied was not reclaimed until they
empty the trash can, which *apparently* isn't a part of the diskette
icon, nor anything inside it. Bad metaphor. More confusions. It's
better to learn a new but correct concept.

    Roger> OTOH, in real life, I would use the terms "folder" and
    Roger> "file" interchangeably; the pieces of paper you put in them
    Roger> aren't files, they are subdivisions of the file
    Roger> e.g. individual pieces of correspondence, or records etc.

Yeah. So, the metaphor "folder" is too simplistic. Knowing that a
computer file isn't like physical files (i.e. folders), I can't accept
the "justifications" for calling directories "folders".

    Roger> But "file" is so established as a computing term, that term
    Roger> must have stuck.

So is "directory". 

-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     +Z05biGVm-(Big5)                    ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ) 
E-mail: danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee

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