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FHS i an API, bad or not.
by John Nilsson on Sun 24th Aug 2008 12:39 UTC
John Nilsson
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The reason users shouldn't see the FS is the same reason users shouldn't see the libc API. I see the FS no different from any other API the only difference is that somewhere we decided that that API was a good UI metaphor and build thin GUI wrappers around it like file managers and desktop icons and folders for user managed documents and such. Imagine if we did the same for libc: What is a good icon for printf that my father could use? That question is just wrong. (Hint: It assumes the solution before stating the problem)

FHS my very well be a bad API, and doing a better API is probably a good ideas. But the intended audience for API is application programmers. Don't design a bad UI for application users just because the basic assumption is that the application user is the audience.

IF you want to fix the way a user interacts with computing objects I don't think the solution looks anything like a structure of files, hierarchal or not.

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