"Folder" or "Directory"?

[Thiago Macieira]

Waldo Bastian wrote:
>Yes I think so, I would give it to monday to give everyone a fair chance to
>voice any objection. If no major objections have been raised by then it can
>be changed to folder IMHO.

My vote would be to keep "directory" where filesystem directories are 
concerned and "folder" when it's just an organisation unit (mail folders, for 
instance, can be simple files (*) or could be stored in a database in a 
remote server), but I'm with Roberto on this: I'm more so in favour of 
actually making a decision.

My reasoning is this:
1) for 30 years, it has been "directory"
2) other existing programs call it "directory" (for instance, mc)
3) we've been calling it "directory" all along, so this would keep consistency
4) the API names it "directory" (mkdir, chdir, rmdir, QDir, etc.)
5) my personal opinion: I've learnt that name first and I don't like "folder"; 
I've never used that term when directories are concerned.

As for the icon "problem", I don't think it proceeds: in real life, you put 
folders inside files, not the other way around. So both icons, for files and 
for directories alike, are wrong. We are representing files by a sheet of 
paper, whereas the "physical" file would be a 1.2 m-high 3-drawer grey thing, 
with folders inside. Therefore, the real-life relation between the icon and 
the name of what it is representing is already lost.

In my view, "folder" is a misguided name. But no one is proposing we replace 
"file" with "document".

(*) unless we take up on Hans Reiser and produce filesystem plugins for 
Reiser4, which would make any file become a directory and vice-versa: we'd 
then allow an user to browse in Konqueror through his mail folder -- which 
would be nothing  more than a file. Then again, maybe we don't need Reiser4 
for that.

-- 
  Thiago Macieira  -  Registered Linux user #65028
   thiagom at mail.com           
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