unity-design team mailing list archive

[Gregory Merchan <gregory.merchan@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 11:51 PM, cmaglothin <cmaglothin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Not to detract from current conversation, but how is calling an app that
> deals solely with files by the name Files bad? It is simple and descriptive.
> If I were new, I would feel less confused by a name like Files, which states
> the exact nature of the application, than by something as nondescript and
> random as a pair of saltwater animals.

Matthew described the problem with "Files" much better than I was going to.

"Nautilus" was so called because it was supposed to be a shell, not
just a file manager. I think it was also meant to evoke the Nautilus
of Jules Verne, searching the depths of the file system. The original
designers either did a poor job of communicating their intentions, or
weren't too clear on them themselves; maybe both. Most people using
Linux at the time didn't want anything more than an old fashioned file
manager, which is something less than either Microsoft Windows
Explorer or Apple Finder.

The current direction of Nautilus is to become a file selection dialog.

> A file manager should not be a main feature of an operating system.

There is a semantic mess here. (Not your fault; I blame the industry.)

In some sense the file manager isn't a feature of the operating
system. It's just another application. Oh, and, of course,
applications cannot be a feature of the operating system when the
operating system is defined as everything but the applications and
user data. In another sense, the file manager is the ultimate feature
(if that word is appropriate) of the operating system. It's that bit
of the operating system which, on the surface, interfaces with the
user data and the applications.

There are other ways to think about that and which you choose is
probably closely connected with your idea of what the entire system
should be like. If you think of yourself as a green-on-black hacker,
you probably think of the file manager as just another application. I
suspect typical Windows and Mac users think of it as just another part
of Windows or the Mac.


> Applications should be at the forefront. If I open a document application,
> it should show me all of my documents and give me an option to start new
> ones. Of course the file manager should be there, be usable, and be
> accessible to those who wish to use it, but generally I feel that
> applications should deal with where files go and leave the user to do
> creative things with those files.

Emacs or vi? C or C++? GUI or console? PC or Mac? I have a feeling
application-oriented vs. data-oriented is a religious issue. Oh, but I
won't let that stop me!

Data-oriented or death. It's as simple as this: The applications to
deal with the data do not exist. Oh, then someone will write them? No.
Sorry. Niche market. Yeah, there are some general purpose tools that
help, but the ultimate application does not exist and likely never
will; there's not enough incentive.

It's worse than that. If the ultimate application did exist, you
wouldn't want to use it. It would be too much. I--well, my users
really--have to move from controlling instruments and collecting data
on one limited access machine, to using it on one or more other
machines and with other data collected on still other machines. This
data, once reduced and analyzed, has to be put together with other
data, and the results of that analyzed. Then papers and presentations
with words, tables, images, and citations have to be written. The
ultimate application that worked for one person wouldn't work for
another because, though with me they do one thing, they are working in
different fields with different goals and different requirements.

What allows a person to bring all of this together is the file
manager. There's no overarching project application, because that's
what the computer is. As any project application becomes more
complete, it has to have a way to organize all the different kinds of
data it's pulling together. Before long you've implemented a file
system and a file manager inside your application. It is as Henry
Spencer said, "Those who don't understand Unix are condemned to
reinvent it, poorly."