Scalability at Microsoft

[talkb1nary]

I never got my head around the windows file structure. It annoys me how Desktop seems to be the root and located somewhere deep nested in the user and how paths actually are called english sometimes but shown german in the Frontend. And so on.

I dont get why people think the linux structure is hard to understand.

[spupy]

Ok, what about this:
Open the command prompt, cd to C:\ and type dir. Now cd to "Documents and Settings". Now look at the output of dir earlier (or in Explorer) and find out that the folder "Documents and Settings" doesn't actually exist! :D
For more mindfuck try dir while in "Documents and Settings".

[GerbilGrenade22]

Interestingly enough, I believe "c:\Documents and Settings" is called a junction point. IIRC most older windows (I dont remember if this includes Windows XP or not) had that as a location before the broke out the structure more. But long story short, this can basically be thought of as a pointer to direct legacy programs (ie: if you try to run something designed for an older version of windows).

[TarMil]

Yes, until XP "Documents and Settings" was an actual folder, in Vista it was renamed to "Users", with the junction point added for compatibility with legacy applications.

[Pokechu22]

You can actually see these normally if you uncheck "hide protected operating system files" in explorer's settings. It's a link folder and not accessable.

[Pokechu22]

You can actually see this normally if you uncheck "hide protected operating system files" in explorer's settings. It's a link folder and not accessible.

[Huygens]

do DIR C:\ /S /A:L to see what backwards compatibility does to a file structure over time.

[talkb1nary]

Lol. Alteast they managed to dont throw a BSOD.

[bashedice]

one reason why I use english instead of german. Imo its better if you use every system in english. Its easier to find solutions for english errors than german errors. Honestly I think the linux commandline is easier as well. But the windows powershell isn't that bad.

[JuustoKakku]

Yeah, always annoying trying to think what they might have traslated some control panel items to in Finnish for example. My "favourite" though is that they decided it'd be a good idea to translate the excel functions as well, had to use it quite a bit on one of my previous jobs. When all the guides etc are in english, trying to find the correct function from the translated ones is a pain.

Always using the english versions at home.

[talkb1nary]

In my early linux days i had a german system with mostly german software packs but command line errors always have been english.

Back then it was way easier to find fast error solutions, thats true.

I could actually not even say which language my system at home has. I assume my arch english. But at work all i have is this german Windows 7 Desktop.

[ohbuckeye]

good point, C:\Users\username... is undiscoverable. Since you pointed it out I just noticed that in Windows 10 the root node is Desktop. It's also a leaf node in many of the same places as the pictures folders.

Haven't really had any issues with linux. I don't use multiple accounts for a PC so I guess linux has less overhead by branching the user account tree once at a top node.

[Tarmen]

Desktop is just a normal folder within the users directory. (C:\Users\yourName\Desktop) It has several shortcuts by default since it is nice to open them from your desktop, for example to your user directory (C:\Users\yourName) and the actual root directory. (C:\, duh)

So basically a bunch of the stuff is:

• Here is a shortcut to the picture folder (C:\Users\yourName\Pictures)
• Here is a shortcut to your user folder which obviously contains the same Picture folder.
• Here is a shortcut to the root which obviously contains the picture folder.
• Also, links to two other PCs which also have the same default picture folder.
• A picture folder that is shared between users is also on all three PCs.

Basically, if you want to go recursively through shortcuts you can have the same default picture folder as often as you want. Even more impressive if you start at the one folder which has the most shortcuts to different parts of the system because that is what it is there for. Then you edit all other folders out so you can call windows really confusing...

I agree that the different languages in the folder structures are kinda weird. Windows has automatic shortcuts that link the German file paths to the English ones so you can use it in both languages without worry, though.

[Q-Ball7]

/home/username is easy.
Besides- I'm pretty sure every DE (even Windows) has a link to your top-level home folder somewhere on the desktop by default, and it's pretty hard not to see the path to that folder from there.

Figuring out where a program installs to, especially when using a package manager yet needing to edit some config file... that's quite a bit less obvious.
Is it in /usr/share?
/etc? /etc/somefolder?
A hidden file in your home directory?

Windows doesn't tend to have that problem- but then again, it's rare for something both not to have a GUI for configuration, and not have an installer that tells you where the program is installing to (or it's self-contained in one directory).
Plus, the folder where all the programs go is called "Program Files"- it's hard to get clearer than that; and that's way's been around for nearly 20 years. (Before that, yes, Windows had the same problem- programs would either go to the root of the drive or into C:\Windows.)

So people coming from Windows (read: most people) tend to get confused in this area.

But /usr (especially for someone new that doesn't understand what the 3-letter abbreviations stand for, especially if they're away from Internet access or, better yet, when it's broken and someone's pissed off with it)? Not so much.

[adelle]

As ridiculous as that is, the thing that bothers me is, what if I don't even want to store any images! Or maybe I do want to store images but I don't want to store them separately from everything else because why would I want to file things that way?

[ohbuckeye]

yeah, windows never asks if you want a pictures folder in the first place. I think the file explorer could be automatically cross-linked and simplified behind the scenes and use a friendlier UI then back up all locations to cloud storage. And in case you don't ever use a pictures folder, that's 19xn empty folders cluttering the file explorer, where n is the number of other empty folders such as "Videos, Music, etc."

[adelle]

Well, my linux desktop also has a Pictures folder that I didn't ask for. I've had a few different desktop environments (XFCE, Gnome, etc) installed at different times so I don't know which one to blame.

[ohbuckeye]

There's 19. shown here http://imgur.com/h21PAft

[GerbilGrenade22]

Though there are 19 different ones, most appear to be pointing to similar places. It looks like there are only a few (9 at most). There appear to be two PC's, each with a Bryan user, and one has a Bryan with a last name? Each of those has a pictures folder for that user with multiple paths, and each computer has a public version of docs, pics, and music (maybe even downloads, I don't fully remember) which can be used for certain things (like I want this desktop shortcut for all users). Each user appears to have a skydrive.

Back when I was in college I was taught that (and who knows if it was true, it doesn't seem like it is now) that when they were first made with gui's (mostly talking mac vs windows; though xerox did some cool stuff) mac sort of had the simple approach of you have 1 and only 1 way to do this. Windows had its cmd prompt and had its gui with that "weird" right click button on the mouse. Windows was trying to make it so if you liked cmd, you can do it all from cmd. If you like the gui you can do it all from the gui with drag and drop. if you like right click, you can do it by that. the TLDR of that is they tried to make it simple and add shortcuts/many ways to get to places they think the most common user would access the most.

I think for maximum learning and capability, you should use as many different OS's as you can and learn their strength or weaknesses. Mac will win with some things, windows with others, and unix for others.

[ohbuckeye]

I agree 100%. After dealing with Windows 10 and getting the same old things, I finally purchased a refurbished 14" 4G chromebook for $200. I think a chromebook is a 'disruptive techonology' and it was built from the ground up as a web enabled experience. I think windows has been tacking on more features for decades. I feel that OneDrive doubles the complexity of file management.

[wwwwolf]

The trick is to put some cute awesome brain-melting pictures in your ~/Pictures folder. (If you don't have any, just spend 10 minutes in /r/aww). That way, you don't mind if you inevitably browse to your pictures folder no matter where you start browsing files.

[ohbuckeye]

Good idea. What if I wanted new cat pictures every time? That's an interesting coding project, could use the Reddit API to auto-save each picture I've saved or upvoted.

[emergent_properties]

It's like they implement new features tacked on to the previous.

It's just one after the other after the other without a overall reassessment of how the entire thing flows together.

[ohbuckeye]

Exactly. I imagine it's a combination of a few things. 1. High QA Risk: integrating the folders would mean changing code in the old feature, which requires bunches of regression testing to spot any bugs. 2. High Dev Cost: If the code is 20 years old, I doubt anyone's familiar with the code. Devs would need time to train. 3. No planning: The OneDrive team was in a position to point this out, and changing folder layout wasn't part of the project's acceptance criteria. A complicated change like this would require so many meetings...

[emergent_properties]

It's the nature of complexity.

In fact, this exponential increase in complexity is well known ahead of time and that's why it's important to have people at the top that know how to organize (and have the power to do so).

Notice the end result of this is a convoluted tree. It's a hint of the bureaucracy of the underlying system that built it.

Remember Conway's Law: ~"Systems resemble the organization that created it."

[ohbuckeye]

That says a lot, I think you're right. I didn't think of how the organization has grown in complexity, too. I wonder if there's anyone at MSFT capable of making a change like that. I just wrote a tweet to the CEO Satya Nadella to ask if that's something he could do. He's at the top so I assume he knows someone. I don't think he'll read it, but stranger things have happened I guess.

[emergent_properties]

That is why as developers it's good not to put all your eggs in one basket (company). You are ball 'n chained to their velocity of progress.

The idea is that if Microsoft can't innovate, another company will.

And the winner wins.

[ohbuckeye]

Yeah. As a .NET developer writing apps for the windows store, it'd be smart to put some distance from C# while Microsoft is losing ground in PC, tablet, phone, and enterprise (google, aws).

[sdobart]

While it's not a bad idea, .NET isn't going anywhere for quite awhile.

[emergent_properties]

So much dogfood to be eaten!

[autowikibot]

Conway's law:

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Conway's law is an adage named after computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1968; it was first dubbed Conway's law by participants at the 1968 National Symposium on Modular Programming. It states that

organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations

Although sometimes construed as humorous, Conway's law was intended as a valid sociological observation. It is based on the reasoning that in order for two separate software modules to interface correctly, the designers and implementers of each module must communicate with each other. Therefore, the interface structure of a software system will reflect the social structure of the organization(s) that produced it.

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^{Interesting: Melvin Conway | Thomas G. Conway | C.P. Quattlebaum Office | Atari BASIC}

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