From the «WWW Wut the hell» department:
Feed: OSnews
Title: Students don’t know what files and folders are, professors say
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2021 20:54:23 -0400
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/133994/students-dont-know-what-files-and-folders-are-professors-say/

Strange as it may seem to older generations of computer users who grew up
maintaining an elaborate collection of nested subfolders, thanks to powerful
search functions now being the default in operating systems, as well as the
way phones and tablets obfuscate their file structure, and cloud storage, high
school graduates don’t see their hard drives the same way[1].

As anyone who has had to sift through a relative’s landfill organization
technique can attest, most people shouldn’t be in charge of organizing their
files. The machine should sort files based on metadata about the file, and
people can select options and provide search criteria to filter the data. We’re
power users here, but even I rely on fd, locate, and ripgrep quite often.

I guess this most surprising part is this is surprising. Computing is
application focused. People open MS Office Word, Apple Pages, or LibreOffice
Writer; they don’t open a file. Operating systems don’t have pluggable
extensions which let people manipulate various file types; they have
applications which run on them.

On top of that, files and folders are a meta-construct so humans can grok
filesystem semantics and, ultimately, blocks on a storage device.

Links:
[1]: https://www.pcgamer.com/students-dont-know-what-files-and-folders-are-professors-say/ (link)

--
Port 80 is overrated.

On Mon, 01 Nov 2021 01:51:05 +0000, RS Wood wrote:

> From the «WWW Wut the hell» department:
> Feed: OSnews Title: Students don’t know what files and folders are,
> professors say Author: Thom Holwerda Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2021 20:54:23
> -0400 Link:
> https://www.osnews.com/story/133994/students-dont-know-what-files-and-
folders-are-professors-say/
>
>
> Strange as it may seem to older generations of computer users who grew
> up maintaining an elaborate collection of nested subfolders, thanks to
> powerful search functions now being the default in operating systems, as
> well as the way phones and tablets obfuscate their file structure, and
> cloud storage, high school graduates don’t see their hard drives the
> same way[1].

I still call them directories...!

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

Am Mon, 1 Nov 2021 01:51:05 -0000 (UTC)
schrieb RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>:

> I guess this most surprising part is this is surprising. Computing is
> application focused. People open MS Office Word, Apple Pages, or
> LibreOffice Writer; they don’t open a file. Operating systems don’t
> have pluggable extensions which let people manipulate various file
> types; they have applications which run on them.

I think the reason is the usage of smartphones. Mostly people only use
apps there and don't understand the file system behind it.
They also save their files in the cloud (just other people's computers).
They don't need to understand a file system's structure anymore to use
the services.

Bob Eager wrote:

> On Mon, 01 Nov 2021 01:51:05 +0000, RS Wood wrote:
>
>> From the «WWW Wut the hell» department:
>> Feed: OSnews Title: Students don?t know what files and
>> folders are, professors say Author: Thom Holwerda Date:
>> Fri, 29 Oct 2021 20:54:23 -0400 Link:
>> https://www.osnews.com/story/133994/students-dont-know-what-files-and-
> folders-are-professors-say/
>>
>>
>> Strange as it may seem to older generations of computer
>> users who grew up maintaining an elaborate collection of
>> nested subfolders, thanks to powerful search functions
>> now being the default in operating systems, as well as
>> the way phones and tablets obfuscate their file
>> structure, and cloud storage, high school graduates don?t
>> see their hard drives the same way[1].
>
> I still call them directories...!
>
>
>
Me too!

Directories and sub-directories.

I never liked or understood why Microsoft decided for
the world to rename them "folders." Or why even most
non-Win folks (and professionals in CS) allowed the
renaming to take over.

Nyssa, who has never seen a hard drive that would fold

Nyssa <Nyssa@logicalinsight.net> wrote:
> Bob Eager wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 01 Nov 2021 01:51:05 +0000, RS Wood wrote:
>>
>>> From the «WWW Wut the hell» department:
>>> Feed: OSnews Title: Students don?t know what files and
>>> folders are, professors say Author: Thom Holwerda Date:
>>> Fri, 29 Oct 2021 20:54:23 -0400 Link:
>>> https://www.osnews.com/story/133994/students-dont-know-what-files-and-
>> folders-are-professors-say/
>>>
>>>
>>> Strange as it may seem to older generations of computer
>>> users who grew up maintaining an elaborate collection of
>>> nested subfolders, thanks to powerful search functions
>>> now being the default in operating systems, as well as
>>> the way phones and tablets obfuscate their file
>>> structure, and cloud storage, high school graduates don?t
>>> see their hard drives the same way[1].
>>
>> I still call them directories...!
>>
>>
>>
> Me too!
>
> Directories and sub-directories.
>
> I never liked or understood why Microsoft decided for
> the world to rename them "folders." Or why even most
> non-Win folks (and professionals in CS) allowed the
> renaming to take over.
>
> Nyssa, who has never seen a hard drive that would fold

I'm not so sure this one was Microsoft. Remember, they (MS) were late
to the GUI party by quite some time. The Apple Lisa showed the world
outside of Xerox Parc what a GUI looked like, and I think Apple called
them folders on the original Lisa (later Mac) OS.

They were, at the time, trying an analogize the computer "desktop" to a
real "desk" in an office, and in an office one's storage (if one was
organized) was file cabinents containing "folders" (of either the
hanging folder or manilla folder variety) and those "folders" contained
documents.

On the Lisa OS, the icon for a folder was actually drawn to look just
like a closed manilla folder, including the raised tab for finding it
in the "filing cabinent".

So it wasn't so much MS renaming them folders as it was Apple naming
them folders, and then a year later when MS finally released a GUI
competitor to the then Mac, they also named them folders (and also made
the icon's look like little manilla file folders from a filing
cabinent).

Those of us that call them directories were using computers, and
directories, long before the Lisa appeared, and via the command lines,
and all the CLI's called them directories. The "renaming" to folders
occurred when Apple (and chasing Apple's tail Microsoft) decided to use
the file cabinent containing folders analogy to, in their opinions,
make the directories easier to understand for the non-techie computer
users.

Nyssa <Nyssa@LogicalInsight.net> writes:

> Directories and sub-directories.

Me too and why not, I don't have a command to make folders or remove
them, I just have mkdir and rmdir. And chdir. Even Windows 10 today
still has the same commands, even in the newfangled "Power" shell.

Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:
> Nyssa <Nyssa@LogicalInsight.net> writes:
>
>> Directories and sub-directories.
>
> Me too and why not, I don't have a command to make folders or remove
> them, I just have mkdir and rmdir. And chdir. Even Windows 10 today
> still has the same commands, even in the newfangled "Power" shell.

The fact that you even know of the existence of mkdir, rmdir, chdir,
etc. means you are more knowledgable about computers than 99% of
windows, macos, android, or iOS users.

That's why the got renamed. That 99% learned them as "folders" (well,
at least the 99% that are also windows/macos users) and those of us in
the other 1% were just too small a minority to stop those floodwaters
from overrunning everything.

On 01/11/2021 09:59, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am Mon, 1 Nov 2021 01:51:05 -0000 (UTC)
> schrieb RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>:
>
>> I guess this most surprising part is this is surprising. Computing is
>> application focused. People open MS Office Word, Apple Pages, or
>> LibreOffice Writer; they don’t open a file. Operating systems don’t
>> have pluggable extensions which let people manipulate various file
>> types; they have applications which run on them.
>
> I think the reason is the usage of smartphones. Mostly people only use
> apps there and don't understand the file system behind it.
> They also save their files in the cloud (just other people's computers).
> They don't need to understand a file system's structure anymore to use
> the services.

In the very early days of MSDOS, it was common to find a numpty user's
PC drive filled with thousands of files that should have been organised
a bit better, so not to offend the OCD tendencies of the tech dealing
with it when they ran out of space (or FAT table entries)

As it was difficult for some to type commands to move items, so
graphical systems came about. XTree, Norton Commander etc...

And so did Windows and other desktop OSs. Containers within containers,
multiple document interfaces, etc...

Mobile phones are kind of single document interface, and often the
application hides the document - facts are only exposed if you enter
suitable meta searches peculiar to the internals of the application.

One disaster of Microsoft's Vista operating system launch was that it
was released without the WinFS file system, which would have nicely
moved folks away from explicit directories to a meta label defined
structure of storing information by type.

This still needs work on.

GMail is a good example of meta labelling structure in use. It doesn't
really put things in folders. They just look like that.

--
Adrian C

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:

> I'm not so sure this one was Microsoft. Remember, they (MS) were late
> to the GUI party by quite some time. The Apple Lisa showed the world
> outside of Xerox Parc what a GUI looked like, and I think Apple called
> them folders on the original Lisa (later Mac) OS.

Um, considering the Xerox Star outsold the Lisa over two to one, I think
credit and blame for "folders" is to Xerox. Credit for being successful
copycats to Apple and Microsoft.

Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:
> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
>> I'm not so sure this one was Microsoft. Remember, they (MS) were late
>> to the GUI party by quite some time. The Apple Lisa showed the world
>> outside of Xerox Parc what a GUI looked like, and I think Apple called
>> them folders on the original Lisa (later Mac) OS.
>
> Um, considering the Xerox Star outsold the Lisa over two to one, I think
> credit and blame for "folders" is to Xerox. Credit for being successful
> copycats to Apple and Microsoft.

Did the Xerox Star call them "folders"?

The Lisa did, but I don't know on the Star. If it also called them
"folders" then I agree, credit goes to Xerox. But making the name
popular enough to "stick" would be the hoards of Mac and Windows users
that overran the gates.

On Mon, 01 Nov 2021 16:14:50 +0200, Anssi Saari wrote:

> Nyssa <Nyssa@LogicalInsight.net> writes:
>
>> Directories and sub-directories.
>
> Me too and why not, I don't have a command to make folders or remove
> them, I just have mkdir and rmdir. And chdir. Even Windows 10 today
> still has the same commands, even in the newfangled "Power" shell.

One system I used in the 70s called them a catalogue.

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

On 11/01/2021 07:33 AM, Anssi Saari wrote:
> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
>> I'm not so sure this one was Microsoft. Remember, they (MS) were late
>> to the GUI party by quite some time. The Apple Lisa showed the world
>> outside of Xerox Parc what a GUI looked like, and I think Apple called
>> them folders on the original Lisa (later Mac) OS.
>
> Um, considering the Xerox Star outsold the Lisa over two to one, I think
> credit and blame for "folders" is to Xerox. Credit for being successful
> copycats to Apple and Microsoft.

Some of us still call them subdirectories.

--
Cheers, Bev
Never argue with a woman holding a torque wrench.

In article <slopu0$mfj$1@dont-email.me>,
Nyssa <Nyssa@LogicalInsight.net> wrote:
>I never liked or understood why Microsoft decided for
>the world to rename them "folders."

You misspelled "Apple."

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

In article <slopu0$mfj$1@dont-email.me>,
Nyssa <Nyssa@LogicalInsight.net> wrote:
>I never liked or understood why Microsoft decided for
>the world to rename them "folders."

On second thought, while you might've misspelled "Apple," I might've
misspelled "Xerox."

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

Am Mon, 01 Nov 2021 16:14:50 +0200
schrieb Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi>:

> Even Windows 10 today still has the same commands, even in the
> newfangled "Power" shell.
Because every script needs such functionality.

Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> writes:

> On Mon, 01 Nov 2021 01:51:05 +0000, RS Wood wrote:

[...]

>> Strange as it may seem to older generations of computer users who grew
>> up maintaining an elaborate collection of nested subfolders, thanks to
>> powerful search functions now being the default in operating systems, as
>> well as the way phones and tablets obfuscate their file structure, and
>> cloud storage, high school graduates don’t see their hard drives the
>> same way[1].
>
> I still call them directories...!

Same here. It is the best word given the context.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
%cd nonsense
[...] cd: nonsense: No such file or directory
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

A student who knows only ``folder'' will have trouble understanding this
clear error situation.

It's not quite different from the problem most people go through with
``logarithm''. They know what an exponent is, but they have no idea
what a logarithm is. You then tell them what it is, but next week
they've forgotten already, though they still remember what an exponent
is. It gets pretty interesting.

It's currently disputed that languages are *primarily* a tool for
thinking, rather than for communication. But a moment's thinking about
oneself reveals that one hypothesis is much better bet than the other.

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:

> Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:
>> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>>
>>> I'm not so sure this one was Microsoft. Remember, they (MS) were late
>>> to the GUI party by quite some time. The Apple Lisa showed the world
>>> outside of Xerox Parc what a GUI looked like, and I think Apple called
>>> them folders on the original Lisa (later Mac) OS.
>>
>> Um, considering the Xerox Star outsold the Lisa over two to one, I think
>> credit and blame for "folders" is to Xerox. Credit for being successful
>> copycats to Apple and Microsoft.
>
> Did the Xerox Star call them "folders"?

Looks like. For example
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/8010_dandelion/OSD-R8203A_Xerox_Office_System_Technology_Jan1984.pdf
indicates that, there's an article The star user interface: an overview
starting on page 10.

Under "The Desktop" it explains:

"Every user's initial view of Star is the Desktop, which resembles the
top of an office desk, together with surrounding furniture and
equipment. It represents a working environment, where current projects
and accessible resources reside. On the screen (Figure 3) are displayed
pictures of familiar office objects, such as documents, folders, file
drawers, in-baskets, and out-baskets. These objects are displayed as
small pictures, or icons."

It's interesting that they made a distinction between folders and file
drawers. https://guidebookgallery.org/articles/thestaruserinterfaceanoverview
explains each, folder seems like an abstract collection of "data icons"
and file drawer corresponds to an actual directory with permissions and
sharing. Must've been really confusing to people who don't bother with
details.

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> I guess this most surprising part is this is surprising. Computing is
> application focused. People open MS Office Word, Apple Pages, or LibreOffice
> Writer; they don’t open a file. Operating systems don’t have pluggable
> extensions which let people manipulate various file types; they have
> applications which run on them.

Arguably that's a bug, not a feature. I note that Macs and Windows are
application focused, and mobiles have inherited that worldview. But it's
not really something innate.

Unix isn't application focused: it's data centric. Files are files. You
can open files in different apps depending on what you want to do with them.
You can chain together 'apps' using pipes. The filesystem is the space
users inhabit (at the command line anyway). The ability to easily share
data between apps and link them together is what makes it powerful.

RISC OS is a platform that inherited a lot of the Unix worldview but
implemented it for the GUI: the primary interface for launching apps is the
file manager, and you open files in apps by dragging them to the running app
icon or window (or there is a default app association for double clicks).
You can chain apps together by dragging a file from the save dialogue of one
app to load into another app, without having to go via the filesystem. It's
the Unix philosophy of 'do one thing well' implemented on a GUI.

I find the Windows/Mac/iOS/Android way of doing things very frustrating
because often the task in hand intersects multiple apps, but the window
manager is app centric not task centric. MacOS probably the most, with its
per-app menu bar. You're doing a task with two apps (eg email and document
viewer), and another task with three apps (eg editor, document viewer and
drawing program). But the window manager mixes those tasks up, eg not
keeping track of which document viewer window relates to what. You can
manually separate that with virtual desktops, but often window switching (eg
Alt-Tab and friends) don't comply because they're focused on switching apps,
not switching tasks.

And of course the app-centric worldview plays into the hands of commercial
software. They would much rather usher customers into their plush nicely
curated restaurant - and can we recommend Sir some bottles from the wine
list? - rather than the Unix model which is a street market where you can
pick and mix tasty food from different vendors to suit your wishes.

> On top of that, files and folders are a meta-construct so humans can grok
> filesystem semantics and, ultimately, blocks on a storage device.

I agree that 99 levels deep of perfectly curated hierarchy is
unnecessary, just like Usenet's classification of the world's topics in a
rigid hierarchy (and the endless naming wars it spawns) is too.

The trouble with app-based silos is that people lose control of their data,
because it's not something they can manipulate any more. So they enter
their data into some mobile or cloud app, but then they can't get it out
again because it's not a file, it's just an entry in a database owned by
somebody else on the other side of the planet.

Theo

On Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:32:31 -0300, Meredith Montgomery wrote:

> It's not quite different from the problem most people go through with
> ``logarithm''. They know what an exponent is, but they have no idea
> what a logarithm is. You then tell them what it is, but next week
> they've forgotten already, though they still remember what an exponent
> is. It gets pretty interesting.

I've been doing some work on IBM floating point formats (hex ones).

I have now learned the difference between an exponent and a
characteristic.

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> writes:

> On 11/01/2021 07:33 AM, Anssi Saari wrote:
>> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>>
>>> I'm not so sure this one was Microsoft. Remember, they (MS) were late
>>> to the GUI party by quite some time. The Apple Lisa showed the world
>>> outside of Xerox Parc what a GUI looked like, and I think Apple called
>>> them folders on the original Lisa (later Mac) OS.
>>
>> Um, considering the Xerox Star outsold the Lisa over two to one, I think
>> credit and blame for "folders" is to Xerox. Credit for being successful
>> copycats to Apple and Microsoft.
>
> Some of us still call them subdirectories.

As do I. Manilla folders don't normally have a hierarchy of other
folders inside them.

Neal Stephenson fans will think of "B�cherradradradrad...."

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

On 01-Nov-21 12:51 pm, RS Wood wrote:
> From the «WWW Wut the hell» department:
> Feed: OSnews
> Title: Students don’t know what files and folders are, professors say

When "computer literate" means knowing how to navigate the UI of a
smartphone.

Sylvia.

Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:
> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
>> Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:
>>> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>>>
>>>> I'm not so sure this one was Microsoft. Remember, they (MS) were late
>>>> to the GUI party by quite some time. The Apple Lisa showed the world
>>>> outside of Xerox Parc what a GUI looked like, and I think Apple called
>>>> them folders on the original Lisa (later Mac) OS.
>>>
>>> Um, considering the Xerox Star outsold the Lisa over two to one, I think
>>> credit and blame for "folders" is to Xerox. Credit for being successful
>>> copycats to Apple and Microsoft.
>>
>> Did the Xerox Star call them "folders"?
>
> Looks like. For example
> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/8010_dandelion/OSD-R8203A_Xerox_Office_System_Technology_Jan1984.pdf
> indicates that, there's an article The star user interface: an overview
> starting on page 10.
>
> Under "The Desktop" it explains:
>
> "Every user's initial view of Star is the Desktop, which resembles the
> top of an office desk, together with surrounding furniture and
> equipment. It represents a working environment, where current projects
> and accessible resources reside. On the screen (Figure 3) are displayed
> pictures of familiar office objects, such as documents, folders, file
> drawers, in-baskets, and out-baskets. These objects are displayed as
> small pictures, or icons."
>
> It's interesting that they made a distinction between folders and file
> drawers. https://guidebookgallery.org/articles/thestaruserinterfaceanoverview
> explains each, folder seems like an abstract collection of "data icons"
> and file drawer corresponds to an actual directory with permissions and
> sharing. Must've been really confusing to people who don't bother with
> details.

Ok, the that moves back the genesis of calling directories "folders" in
the GUI OS'es to at least the Xerox Star. And it also looks like Xerox
may have been the genesis of the physical paper office metaphor that
was created to try to make them seem "familiar".

That distinction between folders and file drawers is interesting. I'd
have thought a "file drawer" might have mapped to a "disk volume"
(i.e. a floppy would be a drawer, different mounted hard drives might
have one drawer per partition, etc.). Mapping "file drawer" to a
directory and the folders to just "data icons" is interesting to say
the least.

Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>
> The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 11/01/2021 07:33 AM, Anssi Saari wrote:
>>> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>>>
>>>> I'm not so sure this one was Microsoft. Remember, they (MS) were late
>>>> to the GUI party by quite some time. The Apple Lisa showed the world
>>>> outside of Xerox Parc what a GUI looked like, and I think Apple called
>>>> them folders on the original Lisa (later Mac) OS.
>>>
>>> Um, considering the Xerox Star outsold the Lisa over two to one, I think
>>> credit and blame for "folders" is to Xerox. Credit for being successful
>>> copycats to Apple and Microsoft.
>>
>> Some of us still call them subdirectories.
>
> As do I. Manilla folders don't normally have a hierarchy of other
> folders inside them.

Not normally, but nothing physically prevented one from placing one
manilla folder containing some papers into another containing other
papers. It just usually was not done in any physical file-cabinet
based org. system.

Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
> Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:
> > Nyssa <Nyssa@LogicalInsight.net> writes:
> >
> >> Directories and sub-directories.
> >
> > Me too and why not, I don't have a command to make folders or remove
> > them, I just have mkdir and rmdir. And chdir. Even Windows 10 today
> > still has the same commands, even in the newfangled "Power" shell.

> The fact that you even know of the existence of mkdir, rmdir, chdir,
> etc. means you are more knowledgable about computers than 99% of
> windows, macos, android, or iOS users.

> That's why the got renamed. That 99% learned them as "folders" (well,
> at least the 99% that are also windows/macos users) and those of us in
> the other 1% were just too small a minority to stop those floodwaters
> from overrunning everything.

Folders is a GUI term. How do you make icons to symbolize directories? Folders. ;P
--
Dang Moderna booster shot took me down again with the same symptoms, but longer! Horror for Halloween time! Worst COVID-19 shot ever so far. :( It's November and cold winter again! :O
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
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| |o o| |
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( )

Scott Alfter <scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us> wrote:
> In article <slopu0$mfj$1@dont-email.me>,
> Nyssa <Nyssa@LogicalInsight.net> wrote:
> >I never liked or understood why Microsoft decided for
> >the world to rename them "folders."

> You misspelled "Apple."

IIRC, Xerox started folders?
--
Dang Moderna booster shot took me down again with the same symptoms, but longer! Horror for Halloween time! Worst COVID-19 shot ever so far. :( It's November and cold winter again! :O
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )