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   Rob Pike (robpike@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 10-Aug-2023 13:38:05 JST Rob Pike

   The very idea of a "Files app" is high on my list of world-defeating idiocies perpetrated by technology.

   • James Morris repeated this.
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     Rob Pike (robpike@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 10-Aug-2023 13:38:04 JST Rob Pike

     in reply to

     Or to put it another way, no one remembers what a profound clarification it was when Unix used the idea of typeless files and the uniformity of access that resulted.

     James Morris likes this.
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     Rob Pike (robpike@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 10-Aug-2023 15:41:47 JST Rob Pike

     in reply to

     By killing that universality, every "app" makes up its own names and its own access mechanisms, making everyone do more work for less utility, while simultaneously siloing all the data into something that the "app" or the "app"''s company controls.

     The data is no longer yours to do with as you please. Or even yours to hold on to.

     James Morris likes this.
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     Rob Pike (robpike@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 10-Aug-2023 15:41:48 JST Rob Pike

     in reply to

     The thing is, files, at least as most OSes used to treat them, were data with a name and access rights. Unix generalized the utility of having naming and access rights for data by making the data's interpretation up to the program doing the asking.

     Today, "apps" and "widgets" and whatever else own the files, not letting other programs use them. You can't grep a spreadsheet or put a PDF into your Photos app (the thing that actually triggered this today)...

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     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Friday, 11-Aug-2023 20:50:14 JST 翠星石

     in reply to
     @robpike >You can't grep a spreadsheet or put a PDF into your Photos app (the thing that actually triggered this today)...
     Why are you using such a proprietary OS then?
     
     I can grep a spreadsheet and open a pdf in gimp just fine, all from GNU emacs too.