From: peter sikking [EMAIL PROTECTED] > chiming in here (getting back to speed). [...]
Peter! Great to hear from you again! I absolutely agree about the virtues of a tagging system, but I fear that the difficulties are not being appreciated well enough. Here, for example, is just one of the problems: Problem: should tags be stored as part of a data file, or in a separate tags-database? 1) If they are stored as part of the data file, then this calls for a new file format for every sort of gimp resource object, and changing tags calls for file system operations. 2) If they are stored in a separate database, keyed by file names, then there is a great danger of losing the linkage between tags and object. If, for example, the user renames the directory holding some brushes, all of the tags for those brushes will be lost. The only way to prevent this sort of thing from happening is to make sure that all operations on resource files are mediated by Gimp (or some new utility program) that will make sure to keep the tags in sync with the data files. If for some reason a user's tags database gets corrupted, it will be a major disaster. There are many other issues of the same sort, which I don't believe have been thought through. The bottom line is that introducing tag-based resource organization is like setting up a virtual, non-hierarchical file system. The ordinary file system may be weak in comparison, but it is extremely robust, and users know how to manipulate it. A new tag-based file system can't possibly be robust until it has had an extensive testing period, and therefore exposes a user to the worst of all disasters: a corrupted file system. The solution I favor is to build a tag-based system *on top of* a filesystem-based system. That way: 1) The tag-based system can be built gradually, instead of being imposed all at once on a flat set of files. 2) The user can manipulate files using ordinary filesystem operations without fear of wrecking gimp. 3) A naive user who doesn't understand tags will still be able to use Gimp without having to learn about tags at the very beginning. 4) A corrupted tags database will still be very bad, but won't make Gimp completely unusable. -- Bill
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