I am sure there are a lot of people just hiding in the background doubting the decision going forward with "Application" centric file system. In other words, hide the data files made by the applications and just use the applications.
Are they nuts? This is going backwards. What are they going to do when you have tons of documents made from a word processor? The word processor becomes a file system? Every word processor will have their own file system for categorizing the documents being made? So the word processor is going to be an operating system now, allowing you to make folders to group docs?
A long time ago when people coded in C and you had so many functions there was something called spaghetti code. Then they started organizing the functions into data objects... So you view the data as the object and call methods (functions) inside it. It was a more organized way. In this analogy, the applications would be the functions, and the data objects would be the documents itself. Now they want to go back to functions/applications?
Suppose you see stuff at the Walmart. They are grouped by type of items (the data). Fruits here, cereals there, tissue here. Do they group it by who made what? If Walmart has 20 companies making cereals do they put the cereals together? Or do they put all the items made by a company in one area? So you have to go to 20 different sections to compare cereals? If the latter, that is the way application centric documents would work.
If Apple wants iWorks apps to be the files system manager, then what happens when you try to share the documents with another application? You would need to navigate for example a Pages's file system, use Page's functionality to "share" it with the other application. Then the other application would have to "receive" it and then you would have a create your own categorization inside the other application. Two file categorization chores to do. Two file management chores (look up, then store).
If you just use the operating system's file management, you can let the document BE the object, and invoke the application to use it (similar to object oriented programming). in this case, there is only ONE file management chore. Its also easy to share, simply right click on the data and invoke which application to open it with. If the document object contains multiple files, simply group them together in a directory, or compress (zip) it and treat that directory or zip AS the entire object. You now only deal with one object. Moving it anywhere means that thing goes anywhere, no hassle.
People think naturally using objects, not their maker. I don't know what apple is going to do when people start having hundreds or thousands of objects made by an App. Each app will need to create folders and be a file manager. Sharing will be a pain because you just want to grab the document and give to someone. In Apple's way, instead of grabbing a document from your own file cabinet and giving it to Bob... You would need to go to Susan, ask her where it is inside her house, and go get it. Then go to Bob, ask him where to store it, then go create the box at Bob's house and store it inside. Why? Because potentially each application (Bob and Susan) can store the files differently in different categorization, multiply it by number of applications and you have hell of a time sharing and storing things.
I used iPhoto, and let me tell you, I hardly use its feature. Why? Its so complicated and confusing. Imagine I need to memorize how another application categorizes the photos (like an editor). Whenever I import, I just make a regular folder and dump my pics inside and categorize as I like, bypassing the complicated iPhoto's event setup. I am sure there are others in similar shoes.
Are they nuts? This is going backwards. What are they going to do when you have tons of documents made from a word processor? The word processor becomes a file system? Every word processor will have their own file system for categorizing the documents being made? So the word processor is going to be an operating system now, allowing you to make folders to group docs?
A long time ago when people coded in C and you had so many functions there was something called spaghetti code. Then they started organizing the functions into data objects... So you view the data as the object and call methods (functions) inside it. It was a more organized way. In this analogy, the applications would be the functions, and the data objects would be the documents itself. Now they want to go back to functions/applications?
Suppose you see stuff at the Walmart. They are grouped by type of items (the data). Fruits here, cereals there, tissue here. Do they group it by who made what? If Walmart has 20 companies making cereals do they put the cereals together? Or do they put all the items made by a company in one area? So you have to go to 20 different sections to compare cereals? If the latter, that is the way application centric documents would work.
If Apple wants iWorks apps to be the files system manager, then what happens when you try to share the documents with another application? You would need to navigate for example a Pages's file system, use Page's functionality to "share" it with the other application. Then the other application would have to "receive" it and then you would have a create your own categorization inside the other application. Two file categorization chores to do. Two file management chores (look up, then store).
If you just use the operating system's file management, you can let the document BE the object, and invoke the application to use it (similar to object oriented programming). in this case, there is only ONE file management chore. Its also easy to share, simply right click on the data and invoke which application to open it with. If the document object contains multiple files, simply group them together in a directory, or compress (zip) it and treat that directory or zip AS the entire object. You now only deal with one object. Moving it anywhere means that thing goes anywhere, no hassle.
People think naturally using objects, not their maker. I don't know what apple is going to do when people start having hundreds or thousands of objects made by an App. Each app will need to create folders and be a file manager. Sharing will be a pain because you just want to grab the document and give to someone. In Apple's way, instead of grabbing a document from your own file cabinet and giving it to Bob... You would need to go to Susan, ask her where it is inside her house, and go get it. Then go to Bob, ask him where to store it, then go create the box at Bob's house and store it inside. Why? Because potentially each application (Bob and Susan) can store the files differently in different categorization, multiply it by number of applications and you have hell of a time sharing and storing things.
I used iPhoto, and let me tell you, I hardly use its feature. Why? Its so complicated and confusing. Imagine I need to memorize how another application categorizes the photos (like an editor). Whenever I import, I just make a regular folder and dump my pics inside and categorize as I like, bypassing the complicated iPhoto's event setup. I am sure there are others in similar shoes.
Last edited:
