[kde-doc-english]Re: Folder/Directory

[Michel Loos]

Em Qui, 2002-05-09 às 16:13, Thomas Diehl escreveu:
> Am Donnerstag, 9. Mai 2002 19:49 schrieb Michel Loos:
> 
> > In the beginning (Win pre-95) folders and directories where 2 different
> > things: You where able to organize your files in folders while they were
> > still in the same DOS directory: therefore they needed another word.
> >
> > On the first macs there was nearly no directories at all on the HD only
> > the organization in folders in the GUI, accessing the HD in an other way
> > you had a flat structure, just like the win3 folders.
> >
> > In fact the organization in folders has nearly dissapeared all systems
> > use directories.
> >
> > We can keep folder for historical reasons, but directory would be much
> > better.
> 
> I must admit the relevance of this for the decision at hand is totally 
> beyond me. I can understand (and even share the sentiment) if somebody 
> says: "directory" is the traditional Linux/Unix thing. KDE is Linux/Unix 
> after all. Let's keep consistence and stick to our roots.
> 

Not only Linux/Unix, it is a common concept of file organization,
present in MS-DOS, AppleDOS,PRODOS, Multics etc.

Folder is a concept of document organization still present in most
Spreadsheet programs, desktop publishing etc.

The 2 concepts are not necessarely related a folder of documents can be
a single file, or various files, you can have various folders in the
same directory each of them represented by various files (very current
in desktop or web publishing). 
Often a folder of documents is kept as a directory of files but not
always.

If you don't try to understand history you end up mixing up 2 different
concepts just because they often overlap.

> But the main thing we are talking here is user perception: which term may be 
> clearer to the people out there, which one is more widely used in existing 
> GUIs, more likely to be expected therefore, more consistent with what our 
> icon artists are doing etc. Do you really think a piece of ancient computer 
> history hardly anybody of these users ever heard of (or cared about) should 
> really be a factor in that decision? I don't think so.
> 

User perception is based on the terms we use, it should not be the
opposite, if the terms are well used the user will get a better
understanding of his machine. And not search for the different files
that compose the folder of spreadsheets he just edited.

Michel.

> Words change their meaning all the time. There is even a washing powder 
> called "Linux". Should this also be a factor when discussing eg kernel 
> issues? Don't think so either. Happily, most people don't think of washing 
> powder when they hear the term "Linux" these days.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Thomas
> 
> 
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>