Re: Terminology

["Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero" <famrom idecnet com>]

c z robertson ndirect co uk (2001-04-19 at 1403.12 +0100):
> I'm not so sure of this, because as I see it there is only one problem
> with "directory", which is that it is not consistent with Windows.
> Bear in mind that hackers tend to be rather stubborn people and that
> many of them wouldn't touch Windows with a barge pole, let alone
> change their terminology to be compliant with it.

And there are even more stubborn items: already printed books,
unmaintained docs and similar things. Convince them to say folder. ;]

> If there were some inherent usability advantage to the term "folder" I
> don't think you'd have much trouble convincing people, but I don't
> believe that there is.

>From my experience, people start thinking about folders, and then
limit themselves due that. The way you see things decides what you do
with them, and if folders have special cases, then things come even
worse ("you can move this folder, but not this one, and no, it is not
due being owned by other user" or "you can see this folders here, but
not there"). Also, in many languajes there are more than one way to
say the same thing.

So while using one term mainly could be nice, we should not go to
limits where other words are deleted. Docs and explanations should
cover all ("a folder is blahblah, and depending in the context or
background it is also called blahblah"). And apps not abuse the term
either, use another if the "folder" will not behave like the other
folders (file system directories).

I can explain the concepts with ballons, boxes, trees, rooms and many
other things, and in the end the people get it, but above all, they
get the idea of "this is like, and uses an icon similar to, but this
is not that thing, and it does not behave exactly like the other
thing". They do not become computer experts, but I do not see any
problem with learning the basics if that means better usage (this
system can be applied to many fields, not only computers, nor only
tech).

Beware of the metaphors, it can be a tricky thing. :]

GSR