Re: lynx-dev dev.24 Archive link runaround

[Chuck Martin]

On Sun, Apr 25, 1999 at 07:06:17PM -0700, David Combs wrote:
> 
> What vocab should we be using in lynx doc?  "Folder", or "directory"?

I'd say directory.

> To me it is now and probably always be "directory" (a "folder" is something
> in a file-cabinet's drawers).

Yes, and I also don't place folders within folders within folders.

> (But then again, I guess to some people, a directory is where you
> find phone numbers...).

But even before telephones existed, directories did.  Go to
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict and enter the word directory, and you'll
get the following definition from the 1913 edition of Webster's Revised
Unabridged Dictionary:

  Directory \Di*rect"o*ry\, n.; pl. Directories.
     1. A collection or body of directions, rules, or ordinances;
        esp., a book of directions for the conduct of worship; as,
        the Directory used by the nonconformists instead of the
        Prayer Book.

     2. A book containing the names and residences of the
        inhabitants of any place, or of classes of them; an
        address book; as, a business directory.

and from WordNet:

  directory
       n 1: an alphabetical list of names and addresses
       2: (computer science) a listing of the files stored in memory
          (usually on a hard disk)

A directory is nothing more or less than a list of names and addresses of
files, some of which may be directories themselves.  I think that calling
them folders is a misguided attempt by Apple and Microsoft to "simplify"
things for the uneducated masses instead of requiring them to educate
themselves by learning the proper terminology.

BTW, if you look up folder at www.dict.org, Webster's and WordNet both
provide definitions that are totally unrelated to files in a computer
or anything even remotely similar, but there is an additional definition
from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) that reads as
follows:

  folder

      A directory in the sense of a collection
     of computer files.  The term is more common in systems such
     as the Macintosh or Windows 95 which have a graphical
     user interface and provide a graphical file browser in
     which directories are traditionally depicted as folders (like
     small briefcases).

Do we really want to cater to that kind of thinking?  Especially when
the term is really being defined as "A directory..." anyway?

Chuck