Nimble Design - /the/path/of/most/resistance

These days, [my] tech support calls [from family and friends] involve questions of how to do stuff these folks like to do. Because they can now actually use their computers instead of simply restarting them, I’m able to better see how they use them. And the one commonality I’ve seen is that no one knows how to use the file system.

Unfortunately 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.

This is absolutely true. I love my wife, but her files are absolutely, hideously misorganized. There are documents scattered at every level of the file hierarchy even though Apple provides very clear folders for Documents, Photos, Music, etc. It’s gross. The day iPhone OS liberates us all from the file system will be a happy day.

One interesting thing is the comments on this article. People seem genuinely upset that someone would dare to attack their beloved (?) filesystems. No doubt these are the people who complain that iTunes “sucks” because it “messes up” their filesystem. (NB: ITunes for Windows does kind of suck but not because it organizes files for you.) iTunes frees us from the drudgery of organizing files for ourselves, and it gives us the added flexibility of allowing us to dynamically reorganize how we look at files instead of always having to use the same hierarchy. The same with iPhoto. These apps offer us freedom to live our lives without wasting time on meaningless trivia, but some people are really invested in how they’ve set their meaningless trivia up in just the right way… It’s madness.

Goodbye (user accessible) file system. We won’t miss you.