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> Companies like to own data in a shared drive on a network. Do they actually like that? Or is that the weight of 30—no, 50—years of legacy momentum? shuffling

> Companies like to own data in a shared drive on a network. Do they actually like that? Or is that the weight of 30—no, 50—years of legacy momentum? shuffling files around is the worst part of knowledge work! pseudo-files are the worst part of Google Docs, i want a unified graph!

airstrike 3y ago
I agree 100%, but you still need to give them the option so they can transition from legacy to next-gen And we still haven't talked about keyboard navigation!
- dustingetz 3y ago
  Ok, you're right – i don't think a smooth transition is possible in the office market – but I also don't think you can disrupt Office from within. Example: the thing that disrupted the New York Times was not a better newspaper, rather Facebook
  - airstrike 3y ago
    I agree! Which is why I'm not building the next Excel, but rather something different which offers (or "will offer") ~feature parity with Excel spreadsheets but approaches knowledge work and document authoring from an entirely new angle
layer8 3y ago
The benefit of files is that they are a consistent, application-independent abstraction. You can copy, move, rename, backup, version, and generally organize them however you want, restrict or grant access, without being constrained by what the respective application supports. Importantly, you can organize files from different applications together without those applications having to know anything about each other. Hyperlinks are no substitute for the object-like, independent nature of files. Applications that are not based on files create their own little separate universe, or rather island, that isn’t really interoperable.
- dustingetz 3y ago
  > files are consistent and application-independent I see diverse, inhomogenous state schemas that are deeply coupled to the originating application (internal data structures serialized to disk!) and have arbitrary legacy structural constraints ("document") as well as seams between application silos
  - layer8 3y ago
    You’re talking about the file contents, not about files as objects. Regarding the file contents, how is that different when the data is proprietarily stored in hidden SaaS databases?
    - dustingetz 3y ago
      I sense a trap, but i'll bite – APIs and schemas and other logical data models can be remixed, at least in principle. Physical data models (i.e. coupled to storage layout) are too low level to be useful, all you can do is load them back into into their originating app.

airstrike 3y ago

I agree 100%, but you still need to give them the option so they can transition from legacy to next-gen And we still haven't talked about keyboard navigation!

dustingetz 3y ago
Ok, you're right – i don't think a smooth transition is possible in the office market – but I also don't think you can disrupt Office from within. Example: the thing that disrupted the New York Times was not a better newspaper, rather Facebook
- airstrike 3y ago
  I agree! Which is why I'm not building the next Excel, but rather something different which offers (or "will offer") ~feature parity with Excel spreadsheets but approaches knowledge work and document authoring from an entirely new angle

layer8 3y ago

The benefit of files is that they are a consistent, application-independent abstraction. You can copy, move, rename, backup, version, and generally organize them however you want, restrict or grant access, without being constrained by what the respective application supports. Importantly, you can organize files from different applications together without those applications having to know anything about each other. Hyperlinks are no substitute for the object-like, independent nature of files. Applications that are not based on files create their own little separate universe, or rather island, that isn’t really interoperable.

dustingetz 3y ago
> files are consistent and application-independent I see diverse, inhomogenous state schemas that are deeply coupled to the originating application (internal data structures serialized to disk!) and have arbitrary legacy structural constraints ("document") as well as seams between application silos
- layer8 3y ago
  You’re talking about the file contents, not about files as objects. Regarding the file contents, how is that different when the data is proprietarily stored in hidden SaaS databases?
  - dustingetz 3y ago
    I sense a trap, but i'll bite – APIs and schemas and other logical data models can be remixed, at least in principle. Physical data models (i.e. coupled to storage layout) are too low level to be useful, all you can do is load them back into into their originating app.