Computer Files Are Going Extinct • Hacker News Board

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#161

Post by u801e » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #134

unqueued wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

> 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.

I haven't worked on cars old enough where this would be an issue, but, as far as I know, all you need to do is disconnect the ignition coil before removing the spark plug.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#162

Post by pm90 » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

uniqueid wrote: post #148

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 theory that in ten years or so the tide may turn. That’s enough time for this generation to have lost, or have had to deal with unpleasant migrations of, their valuable data due to online services shutting down... repeatedly. I don’t know. On the other hand, most older people like myself have had to deal with data loss from failed, obsolete or lost storage devices. There’s still no “one size fits all” very-l…

If the market works its magic, we probably won't go back, but will end up with services that keep getting more reliable with time and outages. If Google/AWS end up with an outage where folks lose business critical data, there will now be a market for extremely high reliability data services. As you point out yourself, not dealing with the hassle of doing backups yourself has been a huge advantage. Ease of use and convenience will trump quality for the majority of use cases and the market will keep shifting in that direction.

If I try to view this from a non-technical persons viewpoint, this shift has been transformative, really. Most folks don't care if their data has been transcoded a million times as long as its still useful and easily accessible. This has protected a ton of businesses and users from being at the mercy of their IT team.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#163

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

stormbrew wrote: post #147

perl4ever wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 see…

What, precisely, makes it inferior?

[deleted]

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#164

Post by eecc » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #131

eecc wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's true. The problem is that even when you pay for service, the incentive is to suck your data away, data-mine the hell out of it and hold you at ransom.

It's like cable TV, originally one paid a premium to avoid advertisements. Today it's just the norm, and you get the advertisements anyway.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#165

Post by nostrademons » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

unqueued wrote: post #149

nostrademons wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

I don't want that world back at all, and actually I never grew up with any of that. But, there is a very simple and direct relationship between fuel in, movement out. And most new cars can also estimate how far they can go on how much fuel. I think that this is actually the perfect relationship, and any more optimization at this point would be harmful.

I'm looking forward to self-driving electrics. You hop in the car, it takes you to your destination, and then you hop out. At off-peak hours they drive themselves to a car farm far away from the city, and recharge. The car service handles all maintenance.

There's this phenomena where anything invented before you turn 10 is just part of the natural order of things, anything between 10 and 30 is a great new opportunity that you might be able to make a career in, and anything invented over 30 is a threat to the natural order of things that must be resisted at all costs. I've put a lot of work into maintaining the ability to see change as opportunity past the age of 30. I suspect that most of this site is just hitting that demographic where new things become offenses against the natural order of things, though, and that's why we see such resistance to things like self-driving cars and cryptocurrency.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#166

Post by nostrademons » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 6:57 PM UTC

u801e wrote: post #161

nostrademons wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

> 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. I haven't worked on cars old enough where this would be an issue, but, as far as I know, all you need to do is disconnect the ignition coil before removing the spark plug.

Yeah, that'll work, it's just that the ignition coil is usually harder to reach than the battery. (I think actually the preferred way to do it, safety-wise, is to disconnect the ignition coil.)

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#167

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

unqueued wrote: post #109

jedimastert wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might imply that your highschool teacher friend is instead falling out of computer literacy, and that highshool students are moving away from her form of a computer-based workflow. I very rarely send emails at all outside of work. Maybe one or two support emails. I also fairly rarely create zip files either. Of course, I know how to do these things, but I don't really do it anymore. I haven't needed to, for the sam…

> I might imply that your highschool teacher friend is instead falling out of computer literacy, and that highshool students are moving away from her form of a computer-based workflow. I suppose, in the same way that people using crayons are moving away from the printed word. > Perhaps instead of email, you teacher friend could find out how her students send things to each other and meet them half way? Make up a goog…

> I have certainly seen kids who have to go as far as taking screenshots of what an app contains and send a screenshot to someone, than actually be able to export text.

I used to export the text of my travel itineraries, and go through several steps to get it on my phone. Now I just take a photo of the text on my screen. It's just one step :-)

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#168

Post by jkp56 » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

PavlovsCat wrote: post #121

A HN comment from 2 years ago I bookmarked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15235151 The war on general computing implies disempowering users, rather than empowering them. But that it's "not surprising" doesn't mean it's good, or that it can't be reversed. I wonder what associations for craftsmanship in software, respect for users, and similar things there are? If there was a web ring about that, I would browse…

Heh, that's a possibility, actually. Govs like how software and personal phones enable global surveillance, but they don't like the power that general computing devices give (all these encryption protocols, bitcoins and so on). So obviously some people in the govs are trying to convince the rest to keep the first and take back the general computing part. We may even see in our lifetimes how common people will only be allowed access to dumb software (the Apple model), and general unrestricted software and hardware will be threated like weapons, with licenses and prison time for software engineers. The alternative path for society is cheap and powerful general use phones with quantum coprocessors and a constitutional amendments that defend these rights. I'm pretty sure that the two alternatives are now being considered somewhere in DoD offices.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#169

Post by pm90 » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

stormbrew wrote: post #147

perl4ever wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 see…

What, precisely, makes it inferior?

Not the OP, but will take a crack: A divergence from the acceptable usage of words makes comprehension difficult, and can cause miscommunications, especially where precision is required; which happens often in a business environment. Even in a misunderstanding of proper usage can severely change the intent behind the messaging, if most communication happens over text (Slack/Email etc.).

That being said... if I'm reading this correctly, its specific to communication in non-business settings, where I don't really care much about whats "proper".

This is a losing battle, btw. Every society seems to struggle with the problem of keeping purity in language and all of them seem to have failed in that effort. Europeans failed to keep Latin relevant. Indians failed to keep Sanskrit relevant. The common language that is well understood by a majority will always win. And trying to keep it pure by force, just makes it die in relevance.

Which is why, the fact that Oxford English Dictionary keeps adding new words to the English dictionary is one of the best indicators of the resilience of the English language.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#170

Post by unqueued » Sun, Oct 13, 2019, 7:06 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #160

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…

”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.” As others said, that’s because they don’t need to do that. In my experience, they will know how to share their Google Docs (which is where their spreadsheets and typed reports in all likelihood get written) with you. They probab…

> In my experience, they will know how to share their Google Docs (which is where their spreadsheets and typed reports in all likelihood get written) with you.

From what she has told me, and from what I have seen, some of them don't even get that far. Their idea of sharing information is to send screenshots in MMS messages or over snapchat.

And, I think that if you graduate high school, you should have these basic skills. Just in the last year, I have emailed zip files to several different people, like my attorney, or when I applied with the local town clerk for a parking permit. There is never going to be an app for everything.

And call me old fashioned, but I think a high school graduate should be able to write a check, put it in a physical envelope with a stamp, and mail it. And if someone lets you expedite something by emailing forms to them directly, you should be able to do that too. God forbid a medical office asks you to fax them something. (Which I still have to do several times a year)

When I was in high school, everyone knew how to use AOL to send word documents and pictures and even mp3s to each other via email. Everyone. These are skills that can be taught.