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Computer Files Are Going Extinct

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Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#131

Post by jjoonathan »

eecc wrote: post #108
cproctor wrote: post #74

To a computer science teacher, this feels like trying to walk up a down escalator. First-year CS students (middle school or high school) with experience using Apple products don't have a concept of a filesystem. The shift to auto-saving documents also corrodes the intuition that files get stored on disk in some non-magical way. In the same way that it's now easier to teach networking and graph theory because youth ex…

Frankly, we’ve been fantasizing of moving away from the file-system-as-tree abstraction since forever, wanting to embrace a metadata rich database approach. Can’t happen soon enough imho

But we're not moving towards a metadata rich database, we're moving towards balkanized proprietary walled gardens in the cloud.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#132

Post by scarface74 »

tomc1985 wrote: post #115
scarface74 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the sentiment, it’s a few years out of date. Starting with iOS 8 - 5 years ago, Apple has had extensibility points where third parties like Dropbox and OneDrive could be used to store documents and used in the common places where you would want to save and upload files across apps. - of course the Files app was introduced two years ago. - there have been third party document providers that exposed…

Files still doesn't have the concept of a 'home folder' on the local device. I heard they even had this feature in early betas but took it away.

You can download a 3rd party app that lets you use your local storage as a document location.

https://medium.com/codezillas/how-to-add-a-local-folder-to-y...

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#133

Post by slededit »

unqueued wrote: post #118
markbnj wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted in the last ten years. I suspect it is the same progression as any other new technology that undergoes mainstreaming. Take automobiles for example. In the early days if you owned a car you either made yourself something of an expert (and if you were an early…

I agree that technology will be more streamlined as it becomes more widely adopted. But people still understand that they need to put gas in their car to make their car go, and if they run out of gas, their car can not go. We don't have to know what gas is, but it is still a quantity of something. But our concept of files and data is becoming so abstracted that we do not even know where our data is anymore, how much…

Teslas do this, they show battery charge in terms of miles or kilometers which is obviously not the correct unit. It's more abstract and often wrong but closer to what the person wants to know.

Oddly enough the iPhone doesn't do this, it will happily tell you how many GB you have left when what the user really wants to know is "How many more songs or photos can I store?".

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#134

Post by nostrademons »

unqueued wrote: post #118
markbnj wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted in the last ten years. I suspect it is the same progression as any other new technology that undergoes mainstreaming. Take automobiles for example. In the early days if you owned a car you either made yourself something of an expert (and if you were an early…

I agree that technology will be more streamlined as it becomes more widely adopted. But people still understand that they need to put gas in their car to make their car go, and if they run out of gas, their car can not go. We don't have to know what gas is, but it is still a quantity of something. But our concept of files and data is becoming so abstracted that we do not even know where our data is anymore, how much…

People used to need to understand that the gas went through a carburetor, where it was mixed with air that came through an air filter, both of which could get clogged. And then it would be drawn into a cylinder through a valve that was opened by a camshaft, where it would be ignited by a sparkplug. Sparkplugs could get dirty, so you better know how to change them yourself. And it'd be very bad if the sparkplug was live while you tried to change it, so you also needed to know where your car's battery was and how to disconnect it.

Nowadays, carburetors are gone, replaced by fuel injection, which controls the fuel mix so tightly that sparkplugs rarely get dirty. And the whole assemblage is so tightly tuned that if you need service, you take it to a dealer and let a professional deal with it.

The world you're asking us to imagine already exists, you've just forgotten enough of the old world that you only remember the gas gauges.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#135

Post by guggle »

unqueued wrote: post #80
cproctor wrote: post #74

To a computer science teacher, this feels like trying to walk up a down escalator. First-year CS students (middle school or high school) with experience using Apple products don't have a concept of a filesystem. The shift to auto-saving documents also corrodes the intuition that files get stored on disk in some non-magical way. In the same way that it's now easier to teach networking and graph theory because youth ex…

I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted in the last ten years. She has her students go into the field and collect data in the form of photos, spreadsheets, and typed reports. She wants students to bundle these files in zip files, and email them to her. Students have no idea how to do this. Some of th…

Teaching to non-CS students (LibreOffice, etc). I confirm most of them have no idea what a file, folder, file system or zip is.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#136

Post by [deleted] »

beefhash wrote: post #18
ACS_Solver wrote: post #12

One of my greatest culture shocks in terms of technology was around 6 years ago when I received an iPad, having no experience with Apple products. After the initial setup, the first thing I wanted was to transfer some files - TV episodes and PDFs - to the device. My first attempt was to SSH into it, only to discover that's not an option, and would require a third-party app store and jailbreak. Then I just connected t…

I'm not sure if this is only an about accessibility to non-tech people. Think about it: You can't get files on your device in a useable format anymore. This means piracy becomes exponentially harder to consume (i.e. you can't use your iPad [easily] as a reader for your pirated ebooks). Quite honestly, that's a stroke of genius and likely a secondary motivation for this workflow.

[deleted]

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#137

Post by shantly »

gameswithgo wrote: post #23
ACS_Solver wrote: post #12

One of my greatest culture shocks in terms of technology was around 6 years ago when I received an iPad, having no experience with Apple products. After the initial setup, the first thing I wanted was to transfer some files - TV episodes and PDFs - to the device. My first attempt was to SSH into it, only to discover that's not an option, and would require a third-party app store and jailbreak. Then I just connected t…

i had a very similar experience and it is infuriating. i can’t believe nobody makes a smartphone that is just a computer. android is closer but its only a half step.

A smartphone that's "just a computer" is probably gonna be pretty bad for most people. Even the more-restrictive Apple App Store has to be constantly on guard against apps trying to get around the rules and spy on users and eat battery for no good reason and other undesirable junk—and not just little fly-by-night scamsters, but Facebook and such. Take away any effort to keep that under control and the experience for most of the non-HN crowd would be awful.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#138

Post by greggman2 »

unqueued wrote: post #118
markbnj wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted in the last ten years. I suspect it is the same progression as any other new technology that undergoes mainstreaming. Take automobiles for example. In the early days if you owned a car you either made yourself something of an expert (and if you were an early…

I agree that technology will be more streamlined as it becomes more widely adopted. But people still understand that they need to put gas in their car to make their car go, and if they run out of gas, their car can not go. We don't have to know what gas is, but it is still a quantity of something. But our concept of files and data is becoming so abstracted that we do not even know where our data is anymore, how much…

Maybe we'll get there. They'll put induction coils in the streets and electric cars will charge and get powered as they go. Unless you're going on a long trip there'd be no need to ever worry about power.

Or, simpler, wireless powering in most parking spaces so for most people never even having to think about power

Or, robot chargers. Put a QR code on your plug, maybe in infrared so it's invisible, and some simple device and find and start charging your car anytime you park it.

Anyway, as an old computer literate person the idea of not understanding files scares me but if people are getting by without them then it's just probably me being out of date.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#139

Post by perl4ever »

nostrademons wrote: post #96
unqueued wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted in the last ten years. She has her students go into the field and collect data in the form of photos, spreadsheets, and typed reports. She wants students to bundle these files in zip files, and email them to her. Students have no idea how to do this. Some of th…

I'm curious if this is actually computer literacy plummeting or if it's a wider population of students being expected to understand computers. When I was in high school the vast majority of my peers understood how to bundle up a bunch of photos, documents, etc. into a zip file and e-mail them. This is because my peers were nerds, and we were excited about this new computer technology and eager to learn everything we…

I think vastly more people are reading and writing due to modern computer literacy, and I can't stand the way they are changing the meaning of words because they don't read books. It appears vocabulary is increasing, but people get their vocabulary from inadequate online dictionary entries and/or peers that don't read books either. So to me, because I grew up reading books, it's incredibly aggravating because it seems like a new and inferior language that grew out of ignorance.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#140

Post by jkp56 »

esotericn wrote: post #86

You can pry my files from my cold dead hands. What amuses me about all of this is that it seems to just further cement software developers as magicians. Back in the day it was the Windows control panel. Nowadays? I have direct experience with tons of people navigating cloud service settings or whatever else via endless GUIs. Just give me the filesystem. It's all a bunch of JSON configs or whatever anyway. find -name…

We'd call this karma, I think. On the one hand these big corps create siloed software environments that not only take all control away from users, but also remove the necessity to think. From their pov, users are as dumb as rocks and should stay at that level. At the same time the same corps cry about the lack of supply of new engineers and pretend to promote CS in college (by giving out ipads and watching a colorful presentation about software, I guess).
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