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From: neff@ibmpa (randall b neff)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,sci.math
Subject: Re: Formalizing location and distance in file retrieval systems
Message-ID: <1990Aug13.195512.10358@ibmpa>
Date: 13 Aug 90 19:55:12 GMT
References: <1801@nvuxr.UUCP> <1129@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk> <1990Aug9.094718.5021@sics.se> <3658@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Reply-To: neff@ibmpa.UUCP (randall b neff, Ph.D.)
Organization: IBM AWD Development, Palo Alto
Lines: 9

I have always thought of directories as being containers where you put 
files based on a semantic grouping; similar to how an outline structures 
a document.  So files that "go together" get put in the same directory.
Also directories are frequently used for versioning.   The desktop metaphor
of folders models the same notion of collecting together those files that
"belong" together.  Symbolic and hard links both allow placing a file in two
or more places that it "belongs".   Symbolic links also allow hiding a 
physical structure (because of hard disk partitions or nfs mounts) under the
user's semantic structuring.