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Statistically they have a lesser understanding of hierarchical filesystems, because Apple and to a lesser degree Google have been going out of their way to hide

Statistically they have a lesser understanding of hierarchical filesystems, because Apple and to a lesser degree Google have been going out of their way to hide that on mobile OSes for some reason that was never really clear to me. They still understand files though. And at the end of the day there's only so much you can do. The same kind of people that will click yes on any dialog will also click yes on "do you want to run this exe you just downloaded", and that'll get you file system access just fine too.

est31 5y ago
Yeah hierarchical file systems are not the one true way to organize your data. But from my understanding, the user grants access via this API on a directory based level when the website asks for access to one directory. If you have no concept of directories, or you put everything directly into one directory, it's tough to make this restriction useful. So in this instance, knowledge of hierarchical file systems is relevant, even if new operating systems make this knowledge increasingly obsolete.
- monocasa 5y ago
  > Yeah hierarchical file systems are not the one true way to organize your data. It's the way nearly all computers, mobile or not, organize data. Some hide this fact to because they either think they know better than the user (Apple) or they want to make it really painful to not store all of your data in their backend (Google). > But from my understanding, the user grants access via this API on a directory based level when the website asks for access to one directory. If you have no concept of directories, or you put everything directly into one directory, it's tough to make this restriction useful. So in this instance, knowledge of hierarchical file systems is relevant, even if new operating systems make this knowledge increasingly obsolete. I think that illiteracy here has more to do with the advent of mobile OSes and people only exposed to mobile devices. Filesystem access isn't supported on mobile browsers at all so there isn't really a problem there (except for mobile Safari, which also doesn't expose folders to users, being on Apple's direct control). https://caniuse.com/native-filesystem-api https://caniuse.com/native-filesystem-api

est31 5y ago

Yeah hierarchical file systems are not the one true way to organize your data. But from my understanding, the user grants access via this API on a directory based level when the website asks for access to one directory. If you have no concept of directories, or you put everything directly into one directory, it's tough to make this restriction useful. So in this instance, knowledge of hierarchical file systems is relevant, even if new operating systems make this knowledge increasingly obsolete.

monocasa 5y ago
> Yeah hierarchical file systems are not the one true way to organize your data. It's the way nearly all computers, mobile or not, organize data. Some hide this fact to because they either think they know better than the user (Apple) or they want to make it really painful to not store all of your data in their backend (Google). > But from my understanding, the user grants access via this API on a directory based level when the website asks for access to one directory. If you have no concept of directories, or you put everything directly into one directory, it's tough to make this restriction useful. So in this instance, knowledge of hierarchical file systems is relevant, even if new operating systems make this knowledge increasingly obsolete. I think that illiteracy here has more to do with the advent of mobile OSes and people only exposed to mobile devices. Filesystem access isn't supported on mobile browsers at all so there isn't really a problem there (except for mobile Safari, which also doesn't expose folders to users, being on Apple's direct control). https://caniuse.com/native-filesystem-api https://caniuse.com/native-filesystem-api