The two metaphors are not as tightly coupled as you suggest. Even pre-computing, a "file" meant a collection of information and a "filing system" was a way of organizing it - that didn't neccesarily involve paper folders. In fact, card files, from which we ultimately derive our computer term, were more usually stored in boxes.

I too prefer the term "directory". Apart from all UNIX tools using this terminology, it also more accurately reflects what it actually is - not a physical container for information, but a list of references to it - an association of names to addresses. A paper file cannot be in more than one folder, but it can easily appear in more than one directory. On a filesystem that allows hard links, this is a more useful conceptualization.

>Apart from all UNIX tools using this terminology, it also more accurately reflects what it actually is - not a physical container for information, but a list of references to it - an association of names to addresses.

Yes, but "directory" doesn't describe the way the UI appears to behave in a way that's more intuitive to the average non-technical end user than "folder." A "directory" could also describe a map or a phone book for most people.

>"directory" doesn't describe the way the UI appears to behave

That rather begs the question though, doesn't it? To a nontechnical user, the ship has sailed - everyone calls them "folders", the icons are ubiquitously pictures of file folders, and it would be terribly confusing to try and change it now. That doesn't mean it was the right choice though. I could imagine a world where the icons were little phone books, and the concept of a hard link didn't require a half-hour explanation.

Check the comment four levels above. Apparently it is not at all intuitive that folders can be inside other folders.

I don't understand that, the folder was picked for the filing cabinet metaphor.

But in a filing cabinet system you have different cabinets, different drawers, different hanging files and various lower level arrangements - non-hanging folders (or drawer dividers), paper clips, staples.

Perhaps they never saw a filing cabinet? Or never put something in a box, then in another box?

When they put food in a cupboard do they empty it out of the current container first?

<<Your house is a drive, every room is a "folder", every container in every room is a "folder", every container inside another is a "folder", every object is a "file".>>

I've come across it, just assumed that no-one explained the metaphor to them.

> I've come across it, just assumed that no-one explained the metaphor to them.

If it was this simple, there would be no people who struggle to understand recursion. And I know of quite a few.

The places where the metaphor gets stretched can be frustrating, especially in Windows. You can put Folders on the Desktop, but there's also a "Computer" icon on the desktop which allows you to browse into other folders.. including the desktop?

Then there's your Personal folders.. which are in fact collections of other folders themselves, but appear transparently to be folders- but somewhere on the file system they are actually different folders. But without the benefit of breadcrumbs to help you keep your place in the structure, where did that file actually go?

Don't get me started on shoehorning OneDrive (or was it OneDrive for Business?) into the mix.. where'd I save that file again?

That's why my desktop is so cluttered!

>You can put Folders on the Desktop, but there's also a "Computer" icon on the desktop which allows you to browse into other folders.. including the desktop?

That's a specific failing of Windows, not something inherent to the folder metaphor, though.

It's one of those absurd things that happen when nobody pays any attention to coherence. That particular thing has driven me BATS for years.

I'm encouraged, though, that my Win10 machine here doesn't seem to continue this foolishness. WinExp used to always show the Desktop as the "root" of everything, but it doesn't now. The quick access pane shows This PC as the root, with quick links below it for Desktop, Documents, etc. It's almost like MSFT is learning.

Well, yes. Windows' implementation of the metaphor is my complaint. In its current form, they may have cleaned up the "desktop" but also made it more confusing to tell what is a special folder/collection/Library. The way it appears now, there's a "Library" called Documents, which includes a folder called Documents but may include others as well. Where am I at a given moment, not sure.