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Plasma Active Three releasedPlasma Active Three releasedPosted Oct 16, 2012 19:58 UTC (Tue) by flack (guest, #87247)In reply to: Plasma Active Three released by boudewijn Parent article: Plasma Active Three released
> And generations of users have found it confusing as hell, hence the big dump of files on the desktop you see everywhere. I can handle file systems, you can handle file systems, other people can't, so why be negative when people try help that set of users?.
You know,this line of reasoning has puzzled me ever since KDE4 came out: How exactly is it that the number of files on someone's desktop is somehow an indication of whether a) the desktop is useful or b) the user knows how to use filesystems?
I mean, I code for a living and manage a number of repos with thousands or tens of thousands of files in them, and the are organized in a sane and useful way. But that doesn't mean that my desktop (on Win, on Mac OS, and on KDE) isn't full of random crap. Attachments from emails, downloads, funny pictures I found somewhere, links to programs (on Win at least), it's all in there and for anybody but me it looks like random chaos, but it's not.
And from what I've seen in the usage patterns of the less computer-savvy, it's basically the same: desktop is for random crap that doesn't fit anywhere else, frequently used documents/programs, or urgent stuff. Just because it looks messy to you, that doesn't mean that the desktop's owner doesn't know what he's doing.
I'm not saying taking away file system access is wrong in all cases, but the perceived disorder of desktops is not a very solid justification for doing so.
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Plasma Active Three released Posted Oct 17, 2012 15:54 UTC (Wed) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]
That's because, not for you, but often, filling the desktop with thousands of files is often a sign of not understanding hierarchical file systems. Another sign is the Documents directory with tens of thousands of files, often numbered.
Maybe yet another sign is the manual for my very first PC (Spring Circle Super Turbo XT with _eight_ Mhz!). I kept the manuals because they are so cute: they explain file systems the unix way, including the /dev /bin/ /usr /tmp etc. division. It had nothing to do with the way MS-DOS worked, except, as Viro said earlier, that it showed where the dos file system was a copy from, without the manual writer showing any understanding what directories were for.
Way back, 27 years ago I took /bin to be the location for deleted files, and moved everything I didn't need there.
Plasma Active Three released Posted Oct 17, 2012 15:56 UTC (Wed) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] Way back, 27 years ago I took /bin to be the location for deleted files, and moved everything I didn't need there. And I always thought people doing that was an urban legend! :)
Plasma Active Three released Posted Oct 17, 2012 16:23 UTC (Wed) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]
Worse, those directories didn't exist after formatting a floppy disk, so I painstakingly created the directories the manual advised on every data disk I created.
Plasma Active Three released Posted Oct 17, 2012 16:36 UTC (Wed) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] I will do you a favor and add a bit of context to that story.
Plasma Active Three released Posted Oct 17, 2012 18:42 UTC (Wed) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]
I should update that list :-)
Plasma Active Three released Posted Oct 17, 2012 20:07 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
Pwned!
Who is asked to write the manual: The one who understands how things
Plasma Active Three released Posted Oct 17, 2012 22:56 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
And if it comes from the Far East: who translates the manual? How much is she paid? Is it more than the people who clean the floors? (Probably not.)
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