It was hard to understand hierarchical file systems if you started out using non-hierarchical file systems. I write from experience using Acorn ADFS on the BBC Micro. You get into a way of working with what you have.
With ADFS the files could be put in directories but these were single letter prefixes to file names. You could not change into a directory and, once one's mind was thinking the ADFS way, the idea of a sub directory with further sub-directories was as conceptually difficult as it is to imagine what 5D space looks like.
The way regular users save files to the downloads folder or the desktop with no sub directories is different. What they are doing is quite sensible for their workflow. This is an extension of 'search don't file', which is Gmail ethos for what to do with your mail.
In previous times 'search don't file' wasn't viable for email. You had to create rules and sub folders. Gmail enables you to do that but it is productive for people who don't do that due to the search.
Traditionally Windows was useless for finding files with search, taking too long and showing you some cartoon dog whilst it chuntered through files slowly, with no command line 'grep' power tools. So you had to 'file' rather than 'search'.
ChromeOS and Android are 'post files' systems to an extent. ChromeOS has moved on from desktop computing of old. I am not one to knock casual Windows/Mac users that 'instinctively' work the ChromeOS/Gmail way. Of course I would hang, draw and quarter any programmer that didn't save files the UNIX way, i.e. in folders with no spaces or other weird characters in filenames.
With ADFS the files could be put in directories but these were single letter prefixes to file names. You could not change into a directory and, once one's mind was thinking the ADFS way, the idea of a sub directory with further sub-directories was as conceptually difficult as it is to imagine what 5D space looks like.
The way regular users save files to the downloads folder or the desktop with no sub directories is different. What they are doing is quite sensible for their workflow. This is an extension of 'search don't file', which is Gmail ethos for what to do with your mail.
In previous times 'search don't file' wasn't viable for email. You had to create rules and sub folders. Gmail enables you to do that but it is productive for people who don't do that due to the search.
Traditionally Windows was useless for finding files with search, taking too long and showing you some cartoon dog whilst it chuntered through files slowly, with no command line 'grep' power tools. So you had to 'file' rather than 'search'.
ChromeOS and Android are 'post files' systems to an extent. ChromeOS has moved on from desktop computing of old. I am not one to knock casual Windows/Mac users that 'instinctively' work the ChromeOS/Gmail way. Of course I would hang, draw and quarter any programmer that didn't save files the UNIX way, i.e. in folders with no spaces or other weird characters in filenames.