Thanks, Saul. Your message brings together a point I should have made prior to my claim that it's all about the index/ontology.
The 2D GUI, folder structure, $PATH variables, and search indexes are all members of the same category. They are _names_ of things. They are all user interfaces to the underlying structure (of the hard disk, of the database, or whatever). And while they certainly do seem different, especially to those who are reared with, most often use, or have an intuitive feel for one or the other, in the end, they are all the same. They are indices into, perspectives on, or aspects of the data. Which one you use _should_ depend on your use case rather than a preference for any given one. But, of course, we're all "experts" at being ourselves, which means our biases define us and are what make us useful to those around us. Without biases, we're just high maintenance machines. So, I realize it's unrealistic to expect people to use Search in one context, folders in another, $PATHs in another, etc. But, I think it does help to see the instances together in their class context. I think my preference for the $PATH comes from the open-endedness and customizability of that method. I can literally put anything in or take anything out of that $PATH, at will. It gives me a very fine-grained control over my environment. The granularity of the folder structure is much coarser (because it's hierarchical, which is also its strength). And while the granularity of search indices is also very fine, I'm just not satisfied with the _common_ attributes available to be searched. If/when I write my own parsers/analyzers, I get more comfortable with search. But I just don't do that enough to ever really get comfortable. And the typical search engines provided by others (e.g. Google, Spotlight, locate, etc.) just don't work the way my mind works, I suppose. Saul Caganoff wrote at 06/11/2011 05:45 AM: > Tying into another thread, one of the reasons I like gmail is that it > was the first mail app that got me away from the folder paradigm. I > don't use folders in gmail and sparingly use tags. Gmails search is good > enough to help me find any email I need from a backlog of several years > worth. > > Interesting to see this now being applied to apps. On my windows 7 > laptop I use search to find apps and almost never resort to the folder > structure under the start menu. > > I've long hated folders because it becomes too difficult to find where > you've filed things. Folders rely on a well thought out ontology. Clay > Christensen touches on this problem when he talks about ontologies > (folders) vs folksonomies (tags). > > Another observation is that I think the folder paradigm is more aimed at > the "inexpert" user. At the majority of two finger typists who hack away > at their keyboards all day because they have to. > > For the expert user I think a command line is far more efficient, but it > requires a high investment to learn and internalize. Many years ago I > used a CAD system called GDS which predated graphic terminals. It had a > command line which could do anything you could now do with a mouse or > digitizing tablet. Most of my colleagues used digitizers, but the real > experts used the command line and were way more efficient. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
