I think what you will see next is TAGGING files, putting in a markup keyword as you push the data into the computer. Directories have fewer branchs that way. But it requires a change in the structure of the data systems currently in place, and we both know how companies hate doing that.
I don't think they're going to do away with the directory structure (ever); mostly I'm rooting for better search methods and maybe a layer between me and the tree, so that I don't *have* to look at the things myself anymore. ;)
The Brain, from TheBrain.com, works in just the sort of free-form way you're describing. You've seen me use it, and I've been using it every day for more than a decade now.
The graphical interface of connections is just very nice for following lines of thought -- hence the name.
I heard rumors that Vista was supposed to have a file system like that, but it ran into problems and had to be cut.
Macs do have some fairly advanced file indexing and searching, although the program saving the files has to put in and interpret the metadata with a sherlock plugin (or whatever they're calling it now).
WinFS got cut from Vista in 2004. Project has been dark since about 2006. Timeline and overview of what they were working on is over here at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS
Pity it got cut, but the level of complexity in making it the full filesystem for a computer is... technically daunting, as their team blog (linked from Wikipedia) makes fairly clear.
Part of me keeps thinking "Why couldn't they have come up with something better than directory trees back at the dawn of computing?" But 1960s-era computers and programmers probably couldn't have handled anything much fancier. Heh, compared to the joys of punchcards, this seems like a trivial gripe indeed.
"When I was a kid, we had 8-character filenames and we LIKED it!"
I use the Spotlight Comments field in OS X to tag my files. Subsequently searching by keyword for images in the Coverflow view ends up being pretty slick.
Yeah, I think Vista has implemented something like this, but I personally don't care for it. Not just because I'm irrationally averse to change (though I'm sure that's a large part of it), but because not only does it feel as though it's merely an overlay on the existing wonky structure, but it feels like hand-holding to me, and I hate that in an operating system. I've become rather self-sufficient over the years when working with computers, and most attempts by operating systems to "make things easier" on me just serves to annoy me. And I don't just mean Clippy and his ilk. (Hmmm... I may have to write an entire entry about this
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The graphical interface of connections is just very nice for following lines of thought -- hence the name.
===|==============/ Level Head
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Macs do have some fairly advanced file indexing and searching, although the program saving the files has to put in and interpret the metadata with a sherlock plugin (or whatever they're calling it now).
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Pity it got cut, but the level of complexity in making it the full filesystem for a computer is... technically daunting, as their team blog (linked from Wikipedia) makes fairly clear.
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Can't really blame them for not being able to pull it off. Backwards compatibility ... yiiiii.
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"When I was a kid, we had 8-character filenames and we LIKED it!"
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Apple stole it from the same place.
Just to put the UI blame where it belongs.... *grin*
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