Microsoft aims for search on its own terms

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But arrogance is inexcusable: Do not assume others are inferior simply because they hold a different point of view, especially since you offer no reason why michael-t 's satisfaction the status quo displays "ignorance".

"I should be able to call up documents related to a project as a group automatically instead of having to put them in a 'folder.'"

Please enlighten us as to how your PC will know what files are related to what projects? Or ideas or concepts? How will you ever find anything if you just dump it to some random location on your hard drive without attaching some kind of metadata?

The bits on your hard drive are arranged in a random pattern. Your data are scattered across the surface of the platters with billions upon billions of other bits that are used for all sorts of purposes. The GUI that presents a single object, a file, is providing a representation of a subset of all those scattered bits. It has already searched for all the components of the file and presented them to you. It has already associated a fair amount of system generated metadata with the file - creation date, last update, size, name, extension, type, etc. With any luck, there is also a bit of application-specific data embedded in the file. Finally, a method of user-specified meta data - where in the directory hierarchy the file should be placed - has been generated and stored by the OS as a result of your interaction with the GUI.

So as you can see, the simple presentation of a file in a GUI already is the result of a large amount of work by the OS to collate the bits of the file and present some related metadata to you.

Creating a directory structure and placing a file in it is one way of associating metadata with a file so that you can find it again. It is simple, has a logical graphical equivalent (luckily!) and has been used for 30 years or so by UNIX and most people using PC operating systems. Other computer file systems were much more suited to the computer but harder for humans. Methods for storing and retrieving files have been mulled over for decades but no one has yet topped the simple, elegant, hierarchical directory structure or its GUI equivalent. I can even do cross-references to files in other directories using an alias (or shortcut for Windows users).

The only way Microsoft's approach will work is if you fill out extensive metadata for each and every file that you place on your system. And you will have to be meticulous about it - if you use someone else's Word document as a template, you had better at least check, and probably replace, all the metadata, otherwise your document may well be filed by the system according to someone else's metadata.

I can't see that Microsoft will be any more successful than those searched for the elusive next-best-GUI. The 2D folder/file metaphor popularised by Apple has withstood a number of challengers over the years, none has toppled it from king of the GUIs.

The current method of filing and retrieving files is simple and elegant. Yes, it requires thought to file things in logical places and to tidy up from time to time, but it will take something exceptional to beat it.; Posted by: Fred Fredrickson Posted on: 11/24/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use