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am regularly amazed that we pretend folders are the right way to organise files. They’re entirely arbitrary. Every competent file system ignores them to its best ability. Why can’t I have a file in two folders? Why does one have to be a “reference”? Why can’t I filter for files that exist in 3 folders with X extension?
We’ve been played for absolute fools.
Why can’t I have a file in two folders? Why does one have to be a “reference”?
All files are references. But you have always been able to put a reference to one file in multiple folders by using hard links.
Why can’t I filter for files that exist in 3 folders with X extension?
find dir1 dir2 dir3 -name '*.x' -type f
Yep. Even NT was doing it for decades. Though it was pretty discouraged on the Microsoft side.
Tree-like hierarchy is used all over the place, including computers, because it's a useful and easily understood way to organize information.
Why can’t I have a file in two folders?
You can. man ln
Why does one have to be a “reference”?
I don't know what you mean by that. If you mean a link target, it doesn't. A file is canonically identified by its inode (or equivalent), not where it appears in a directory tree.
Why can’t I filter for files that exist in 3 folders with X extension?
You can. Common tools like find can do this, as can some file managers like Dolphin, and various indexing tools.
If you mean to ask why that sort of indexing/filtering isn't built in to most filesystems, consider compatibility: Practically no software exists that would know how to take advantage of it. Also consider what it would mean for a filesystem to filter by files that exist in 3 folders if that filesystem doesn't use folders. :)
(BTW, that "extension" concept doesn't exist in most modern filesystems. Any .xyz suffix you see in the ones that don't come from Microsoft is just part of the file name, with no special meaning. Some programs try to guess at content type based on common file name suffixes, but that is unreliable and has nothing to do with the fs.)
Since you're interested in this topic, though, maybe have a look at different approaches to data storage that have been tried over the years. To get you started:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_storage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system#Database_file_systems
At my company we use M-Files, which is a document storage system that prides itself in not using folders. “No more searching for the file in thousands of folders”, they proclaim. It’s all a huge dump of files. To find files you need to tag them when checking them in. Later you search via these tags.
Guess what happens: All documents are either untagged or they’re tagged with wildly unhelpful tags. So in reality you can’t find shit. You can’t even make a sensible guess as to where a file might be and check the 3–5 folders that come to mind, because there are no folders.
M-Files is a black hole for information. No, scratch that. Even black holes radiate out the information they receive. M-Files doesn’t.
In my last company we used a system called windchill. Technically they had folders. Previously we used a different system. But when we switched to windchill no one had time to actually sort and organize the tens of thousands of documents. As a result everything just got dropped in the root folder.
To make it worse there was no enforced naming scheme... Plan for... Thing's plan.... Protocol for execution of thing... Ip of thing.... Thing's up... Protocol of thing.... Plan of thing... All valid. And in 5 years when your 3rd replacement is trying to find it... Alcoholism is a serious disorder
I disagree, folder system means any programming language that can handle files don't need any special libraries for system access.
Have you considered how godsend is to generate random numbers with just reading /dev/random however you want?
Wait, I've got it: what if we put every file in one folder, and then hard-link the files we need higgildy-piggildy all over the place!
We can call it WinSxS!
Is this rage bait?
What is your alternative non-folder solution?
SQlite 😅
I can't say I disagree, but I am ignorant of what the alternatives would be. A tagged database of files so you can query by tag, filename, or such?
A hierarchical tag structure would let you mimic a folder structure, but free you from many of its constraints
I know, instead of folders, we could use "shelves" and the Dewey Decimal System.
No no, you see, most people like organisation. Also, it's intuitive as it is analagous to actual folders that store actual files. It would be kind of weird if you could store a file in multiple folders. What would that even mean? If you delete a file from one folder, is it deleted in the other? Folders aren't meant to be labels (labels are labels), they're locations. Your toothbrush is in the bathroom, pots and pans in the kitchen, etc.
Can you please save this somewhere you'll find it in 10 years?