6 ms·

An alternative to hierarchical file systems.

JulianMorrison 19y ago
How about a Zork style room-model file system? You are in Foocorp documents. East is Bloggins&Smith, south is Vexcorp. You can see Foocorp.xls Bob is here. Jane is here. Bob says "Jim, can we go over the numbers for Foo?" > Use Foocorp.xls with Excel (Excel starting...)
andr 19y ago
Microsoft is already working on that. ;)
- sabat 19y ago
  All the more reason for someone else to work on it, and do it right.
  - mixmax 19y ago
    i wouldn't worry about Microsoft actually developing something new and useful. Unless Apple did it first of course.
    - pius 19y ago
      To be fair, WinFS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS) had some really exciting ideas in it. I distinctly remember being a sophomore in college, looking forward to "Longhorn" because of things like WinFS, but having trepidation about it because of things like Palladium. Of course, that was a good six years ago. They ended up gutting both of those features out of Vista to get the OS out the door and even then it was years late. But I digress. :)
    - strey 19y ago
      Bah, stop pandering to the Microsoft haters.
      - sabat 19y ago
        Actually that's not how I meant it. Regardless of who is working on it, it shouldn't stop you from working on it yourself and doing it better.
        strey 19y ago
        And that's why you stuck "do it right" on at the end, eh?
        sabat 19y ago
        "Do it right" means as opposed to doing something the way a big corporation would do it (generally design by committee or by apathetic drones). MS is certainly guilty of that, but I wasn't picking on them.
      - mixmax 19y ago
        It wasn't meant to pander anybody - it was merely stating an opinion...
        strey 19y ago
        Ah, good point. On another note, people who vote on HN are the smartest people in the world. That's my opinion.
        strey 19y ago
        Apparently the voters disagree.
        icky 19y ago
        Maybe they felt pandered-to? ;)
        strey 19y ago
        No, no, I'm just expressing an opinion, like mixmax. It's up to the voters whether they actually think they're so smart. For example, here is another opinion: icky is the best handle ever.
- strey 19y ago
  Windows has had the ability to categorize files for awhile. If you look in a file's properties, you can add custom properties to any file. I don't know if there is a way to use these properties in the file system, though.
dkokelley 19y ago
I've been thinking recently about that too. It's inefficient to use a traditional folder/file system, at least for your personal documents (for system and program files I think they're better off the original way.) What about folders that represent tags? I could tag a file (say a picture) with Danny (my name), Vacation, and 2007. The system creates 4 "folders" as we understand them, each one labeled with a tag, and the final one labeled as "images" or something similar (whatever the file type is). You could open the "images" folder and see the image, along with all other images. You could drill down further into images>vacation and see all files tagged with both images and vacation. You will also see additional folders for other items that have additional tags and fit in the images>vacation tag. You could also get to the same file by going into the "Danny" folder, to see all files tagged with "Danny," It's a little difficult to explain, and I'm sure that what I'm trying to express is already being developed by someone, but either way, it is a more efficient system than what we already have. No more annoying shortcuts and restrictive folders.
- Xichekolas 19y ago
  Yeah my thoughts on the matter have always included tagging. It just seems logical to have the same file in more than one group (or folder if you want to call it that), and I hate drilling down seven levels to find something. My problem has always been in dealing with system files. The current setup seems rather logical for them anyway. Maybe a two pronged approach like you suggest makes the most sense.
- frankus 19y ago
  It seems like that would be pretty straightforward to add to any filesystem that already supports metadata. I'm sure Windows has something similar, but on MacOS X.5 (a feature borrowed from BeOS, IIRC), you can create a Smart Folder that's basically a canned query for files matching a very large set of criteria. I'm not sure what the API is for extending the criteria, but presumably adding tags wouldn't be all that difficult.
- staticshock 19y ago
  I've considered this idea myself, previously, and I like it a lot. The beauty is that if you go to \Images\Vacation\2005, it's the same as going to \2005\Vacation\Images, so you can access your files in an intuitive way no matter which train of thought got you there. The only thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to represend these tags as directories. You shouldn't see them all at the top level, that'd be pretty crowded.
Hexstream 19y ago
Indeed. I came up with a new motto lately: "Premature hierarchisation is the root of all rigidity."
frankus 19y ago
One of my many "I'll never have time for that" interests is experimenting with OS-wide transparent persistence.
soxos 19y ago
Why not take over the ReiserFS project? We all know about the difficulties it's leader is having...
- nkohari 19y ago
  Because Reiser is hierarchical, no?

How about a Zork style room-model file system? You are in Foocorp documents. East is Bloggins&Smith, south is Vexcorp. You can see Foocorp.xls Bob is here. Jane is here. Bob says "Jim, can we go over the numbers for Foo?" > Use Foocorp.xls with Excel (Excel starting...)

andr 19y ago

Microsoft is already working on that. ;)

sabat 19y ago
All the more reason for someone else to work on it, and do it right.
- mixmax 19y ago
  i wouldn't worry about Microsoft actually developing something new and useful. Unless Apple did it first of course.
  - pius 19y ago
    To be fair, WinFS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS) had some really exciting ideas in it. I distinctly remember being a sophomore in college, looking forward to "Longhorn" because of things like WinFS, but having trepidation about it because of things like Palladium. Of course, that was a good six years ago. They ended up gutting both of those features out of Vista to get the OS out the door and even then it was years late. But I digress. :)
  - strey 19y ago
    Bah, stop pandering to the Microsoft haters.
    - sabat 19y ago
      Actually that's not how I meant it. Regardless of who is working on it, it shouldn't stop you from working on it yourself and doing it better.
      - strey 19y ago
        And that's why you stuck "do it right" on at the end, eh?
        sabat 19y ago
        "Do it right" means as opposed to doing something the way a big corporation would do it (generally design by committee or by apathetic drones). MS is certainly guilty of that, but I wasn't picking on them.
    - mixmax 19y ago
      It wasn't meant to pander anybody - it was merely stating an opinion...
      - strey 19y ago
        Ah, good point. On another note, people who vote on HN are the smartest people in the world. That's my opinion.
        strey 19y ago
        Apparently the voters disagree.
        icky 19y ago
        Maybe they felt pandered-to? ;)
        strey 19y ago
        No, no, I'm just expressing an opinion, like mixmax. It's up to the voters whether they actually think they're so smart. For example, here is another opinion: icky is the best handle ever.
strey 19y ago
Windows has had the ability to categorize files for awhile. If you look in a file's properties, you can add custom properties to any file. I don't know if there is a way to use these properties in the file system, though.

dkokelley 19y ago

I've been thinking recently about that too. It's inefficient to use a traditional folder/file system, at least for your personal documents (for system and program files I think they're better off the original way.) What about folders that represent tags? I could tag a file (say a picture) with Danny (my name), Vacation, and 2007. The system creates 4 "folders" as we understand them, each one labeled with a tag, and the final one labeled as "images" or something similar (whatever the file type is). You could open the "images" folder and see the image, along with all other images. You could drill down further into images>vacation and see all files tagged with both images and vacation. You will also see additional folders for other items that have additional tags and fit in the images>vacation tag. You could also get to the same file by going into the "Danny" folder, to see all files tagged with "Danny," It's a little difficult to explain, and I'm sure that what I'm trying to express is already being developed by someone, but either way, it is a more efficient system than what we already have. No more annoying shortcuts and restrictive folders.

Xichekolas 19y ago
Yeah my thoughts on the matter have always included tagging. It just seems logical to have the same file in more than one group (or folder if you want to call it that), and I hate drilling down seven levels to find something. My problem has always been in dealing with system files. The current setup seems rather logical for them anyway. Maybe a two pronged approach like you suggest makes the most sense.
frankus 19y ago
It seems like that would be pretty straightforward to add to any filesystem that already supports metadata. I'm sure Windows has something similar, but on MacOS X.5 (a feature borrowed from BeOS, IIRC), you can create a Smart Folder that's basically a canned query for files matching a very large set of criteria. I'm not sure what the API is for extending the criteria, but presumably adding tags wouldn't be all that difficult.
staticshock 19y ago
I've considered this idea myself, previously, and I like it a lot. The beauty is that if you go to \Images\Vacation\2005, it's the same as going to \2005\Vacation\Images, so you can access your files in an intuitive way no matter which train of thought got you there. The only thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to represend these tags as directories. You shouldn't see them all at the top level, that'd be pretty crowded.

Hexstream 19y ago

Indeed. I came up with a new motto lately: "Premature hierarchisation is the root of all rigidity."

frankus 19y ago

One of my many "I'll never have time for that" interests is experimenting with OS-wide transparent persistence.

soxos 19y ago

Why not take over the ReiserFS project? We all know about the difficulties it's leader is having...

nkohari 19y ago
Because Reiser is hierarchical, no?