Go back 40/50 years, and most people then thought of directories as an index (see telephone directory), and folders were thing that contained/were files within a filing cabinet.
I still have a hard time calling them folders, it gives me a little eye twitch to say “folder”, though I know the icon is a folder, and it makes it easier for the average person to grok.
Yeeeah, I’m there, too. It helps that in my native language people still use “directory” frequently. It’s an obscure enough word that it just took on that primary meaning smoothly. Folder is more confusing.
I always felt that way, even at the time. All the skeuomorphism seems silly now, but it felt even sillier coming from DOS and being used to things being very abstract before.
I completely changed my mind on this a bunch of years ago when I did a lot of work with LDAP. “Directory” may have seemed a good choice at the time, but now we have so many things which are directories and fit the IRL definition better, to look up information. Meanwhile “folders” fit the IRL definition better, for things that contain and organize files
At this point they’re both used so interchangeably it doesn’t matter, honestly. “Directory” is going to keep slipping out for me because it’s grandfathered in, but I genuinely don’t even keep track of which one I use more frequently or which platforms use one or the other in their messaging.
The “digital replacement” nonsense is also why we now have “folders” instead of “directories”. This thing gave me so many awkward flashbacks.
Go back 40/50 years, and most people then thought of directories as an index (see telephone directory), and folders were thing that contained/were files within a filing cabinet.
I still have a hard time calling them folders, it gives me a little eye twitch to say “folder”, though I know the icon is a folder, and it makes it easier for the average person to grok.
Fuck the icon. You don’t
mkfoldyoumkdir. You don’tcfyoucd. They’re obviously directories.Lol, preach!
Yeeeah, I’m there, too. It helps that in my native language people still use “directory” frequently. It’s an obscure enough word that it just took on that primary meaning smoothly. Folder is more confusing.
I always felt that way, even at the time. All the skeuomorphism seems silly now, but it felt even sillier coming from DOS and being used to things being very abstract before.
I completely changed my mind on this a bunch of years ago when I did a lot of work with LDAP. “Directory” may have seemed a good choice at the time, but now we have so many things which are directories and fit the IRL definition better, to look up information. Meanwhile “folders” fit the IRL definition better, for things that contain and organize files
At this point they’re both used so interchangeably it doesn’t matter, honestly. “Directory” is going to keep slipping out for me because it’s grandfathered in, but I genuinely don’t even keep track of which one I use more frequently or which platforms use one or the other in their messaging.