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From: domo@riddle.UUCP (Dominic Dunlop)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.next,comp.sys.mac,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Re^2: replacing the desktop metaphor (Why any metaphor?)
Keywords: desktop metaphor, graphical interfaces, computing environments
Message-ID: <973@riddle.UUCP>
Date: 17 Jan 89 15:46:39 GMT
References: <850@mtfmi.att.com> <673@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> <223@torch.UUCP>
Reply-To: domo@riddle.UUCP (Dominic Dunlop)
Organization: Sphinx Ltd., Maidenhead, England
Lines: 29

In article <223@torch.UUCP> paul@torch.UUCP (Paul Andrews) writes:
> [Stuff deleted]
>Less drastic but still annoying in the Mac desktop metaphor is that moving
>a file from one folder to another sometimes copies it and other times moves
>it.

Yeah.  I despair that people still come up with file heirarchies where you
can see physical disks (or things which pretend to be them) for no good
reason.  If the thing's removable then, yes, there's a reason for making
the joins visible, but if it's part of the furniture (even of furniture set
up by some administrative function before you enter the room -- woops,
sorry, wrong metaphor) I maintain it should be seamless.  The UNIX
analogue to moving a file between folders is the mv command.  This indeed
sometimes has to copy the file from one physical device to another behind
the scenes.  But it never results in there being two copies of a file
where before there was only one.  I suppose it could do, but to do so
would be inconsistent with UNIX' metaphor of an hierarchical file system
that is as seamless as possible.  You really want a copy?  OK.  Use cp. 
(Yes, yes, I know that you can get bit if you try to use the other alias
for mv, ln, across physical devices -- sorry if you were expecting
perfection.)

I guess life could be worse: the Mac disks might be called A:, B:...
(Probably one of Digital's better ideas for the 1960s.  Just a pity that
twenty million users are still living with it because CP/M appropriated it
in the 1970s.)
-- 
Dominic Dunlop
domo@sphinx.co.uk  domo@riddle.uucp