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Computer Files Are Going Extinct

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Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#271

Post by michaelmrose »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #203
chrisseaton wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For anecdotal example, a family member had this issue with Picasa [before it was purchased by Google]. "I rotated and cropped thousands of my pictures, but when I look at them in my 'Pictures' folder my edits aren't there. Where are my edits? Why aren't my edits in Picasa in my 'Pictures' folder pictures?" But Apple have solved this confusion by removing the files and folders and making the application the one plac…

Only if your entire computing is 100% done on your own Apple devices, and you don't need anything beyond the capabilities offered by Apple's software.

God forbid you want to access the same file with different apps.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#272

Post by kccqzy »

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…

What I see as most problematic is the fact that people want to become CS majors before they become computer enthusiasts.

Long before I studied computer science concepts, I was enamored with computers. I was a power user then. When I was in elementary school I couldn't have Internet access any time I wanted (it was literally a call on the family telephone) so I spent lots of time playing around with the operating system and the installed applications. Many nights were spent exploring the nooks and crannies of Windows and Office. I learned about the cmd.exe and wrote batch scripts before I had any idea what computer science was about.

Later when I moved from Windows to Mac in the early 00's, I did the same. The same kind of curiosity led me to naturally explore the various system utilities, from Mac-specific like hdiutil or diskutil to general Unix-y.

I don't know whether this is fighting a losing battle, but I doubt anyone who's not curious enough to learn about the innards of their computers can really become successful CS majors and hackers.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#273

Post by zaphirplane »

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…

The same can be said for newer cars and the people not knowing how they work to fix them up Or gps and knowing how to navigate This maybe another example of users just caring about using something to make lives simpler and more fun

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#274

Post by scarface74 »

jobigoud wrote: post #270
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…

I don't think the sentiment is out of date. I have a borrowed iPhone X and just a few days ago I wanted to download videos I took with it. I connected it to my PC and I don't see it as a drive. I had to look up the Internet to learn how to transfer my own files. The solution was to switch Windows to the horrible tile thingy UI, get to the "Photos" application, and from there, there is a button to import the files. I…

That’s an issue with Windows. The iPhone has always presented itself as a camera on Windows and you access the pictures like you do any other camera.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#275

Post by friendlybus »

markbnj wrote: post #84
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 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 don't need a license for my washing machine. I understand how the functions on my washing machine work less than I do my user facing car controls. People spend thousands of hours driving with the keen knowledge it is possible to kill other drivers on the road. They master it's abilities even if they make bad decisions behind the wheel.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#276

Post by cookie_monsta »

pnutjam wrote: post #262
cookie_monsta wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the iPad requirement is my but beef. I feel your pain. At an obligatory 500 bucks a pop I would have been much happier to buy them laptops.

I rent them, but unless you have other Apple products you can only setup adult accounts, so my kindergartner has to be "13".

We somehow dodged the iPads for kindergarteners bullet but that would have made my blood boil. I guess the FingerPaint app is less messy than actual fingers and actual paint.

In my less charitable moments I think teachers are getting lazier, but when I go to those parent conferences and see the teaching staff looking like rabbits in the spotlight as parents of 3rd graders grill them on the latest academic theories I realise that really they're caught in the middle of a whole set of weird expectations.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#277

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

saghm wrote: post #267
seabird wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked for various companies in the engineering and manufacturing industries, and zipping and sending files over email is as far from dead as you can imagine, and has a very bright future ahead of it. Frankly, today's high school students have wildly deficient computer skills. We're talking about teenagers whose usage of a computer usually consists of browsing Facebook and listening to music on Spotify, not actu…

Honest question: what do you do when the files you want to send are larger than the max attachment size for the email provider? If you send it through another medium, why not do that by default instead of email?

Because it is significantly more cumbersome. With email you get the file literally attached to the message talking about it, and you store that away and can always find the file and the context for it in the same place.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#278

Post by friendlybus »

nostrademons wrote: post #165
unqueued wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One would think the resistance to crypto has more to do with it's basic value proposition. Watching 4 years of every crypto coin functioning as a honeypot trap for the naive, then exploding, leaves a mark. Bitconnect making billions from scamming people rings truer in my mind than some vague ageism.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#279

Post by seabird »

saghm wrote: post #267
seabird wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked for various companies in the engineering and manufacturing industries, and zipping and sending files over email is as far from dead as you can imagine, and has a very bright future ahead of it. Frankly, today's high school students have wildly deficient computer skills. We're talking about teenagers whose usage of a computer usually consists of browsing Facebook and listening to music on Spotify, not actu…

Honest question: what do you do when the files you want to send are larger than the max attachment size for the email provider? If you send it through another medium, why not do that by default instead of email?

SMB shares or the like are pretty much universal in such a situation. I generally tend toward making something available on a file share and emailing a link, but because of permissions and access controls, email is generally easier, especially for transient files that really don't need to be permanently saved. Never once have I used Dropbox or Google Drive in such a situation, even with very small companies.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#280

Post by userbinator »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #59
chrisseaton wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My first attempt was to SSH into it Come on that’s not a sensible thing to expect from a non-specialist device, is it? I’m not sure this is a reasonable criticism.

Well, sure, I didn't expect it to be running a SSH server right away, but I was hoping to have a SSH option somewhere in the settings or, in the worst case, a downloadable app. It's a power user feature of course, but knowing that it's a Unix-based device, I absolutely expected easy SSH access. Then again, this is something that happened a lot with my brief use of iOS - I would repeatedly find that Apple clearly didn…

OS X has SSH, and it is an option you can enable.
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