File Management Quotes

The desktop metaphor was invented because one, you were a stand-alone device, and two, you had to manage your own storage. That's a very big thing in a desktop world. And that may go away. You may not have to manage your own storage. You may not store much before too long.

With Windows 8, Microsoft is trying to gain market share in what has been dominated by the iPad-type device. But a lot of those users are frustrated. They can't type. They can't create documents.

Like some helpful person (hi, Mom) has tried to "'clean'" it, and suddenly you can't find anything?

The original version of C did not have structures. So to make tables of objects, process tables and file tables and this tables and that tables, it really was fairly painful.

When I write a script, I have all the old versions of the script on my laptop. They're saved as backups in case something goes horribly wrong.

Outlook 2003 did create the idea of search folders and the whole Longhorn philosophy. You can see it at work in search folders, where instead of having to drop things into individual folders, and things exist only in one folder, you create these search folders and you have the criteria for the search folder.

Document preparation systems will also require large screen displays.

My filing system's really crap because I can never decide whether to sort things by studio, or year, or where I lived.

I think Leopard is a much better system [than Windows Vista] but OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.

Computers are hierarchical. We have a desktop and hierarchical files which have to mean everything.

At the end of April I archived 'Curses' and Inform, and announced them on the newsgroups.

Filing is concerned with the past; anything you actually need to see again has to do with the future.

Well-secured files don't do you much good if you lose them in a fire or hard drive crash.

With the Internet, if you erase something it just means you have to spend another half-minute to find it.

To my way of thinking, passive management of file assets is okay for screwing around with iPads, where we're mainly watching TV on Netflix or obsessive-compulsively checking the popularity of our Instagram uploads.

I like files. I like editing a CSS file without necessarily having to edit an HTML file. I like fixing a problem by replacing a corrupted file with a clean one. Maybe I'm set in my ways, but I don't consider it a hardship to open a folder or replace a file.

We have persistant objects, they're called files.

Cosmoe works on any of the standard filesystems available for Linux.

Records just happen.

I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day.

Any editing, software work, and mail is done in this exported Plan 9.

For one person, organized files might be a crucial tool for creativity; another person finds inspiration in random juxtapositions.

As much as we can, we want to prevent people from having to think about how to keep and share their stuff.

Trying to write while I'm distracted definitely doesn't work for me. I'm also a compulsive saver of my files, so every writing session ends with me emailing what I've written to myself, just in case.

Windows is the best place; it's the home for the very best Microsoft experiences.