I think that the metaphors we use to design software can hold us back sometimes.

Specifically, I’ve been thinking about file systems.

“File” is a fine metaphor for “chunk of data” I guess but we use two conflicting metaphors on top of that to describe the same thing: “folder” and “directory”.

Why do we limit ourselves to this rigid, hierarchical system for managing our data?

Maybe something based on tags, or attributes or some other metadata.

Hierarchy can be useful so I don’t want to completely get rid of it, or anything drastic like that, but we (or at least *I*) don’t think in those terms.

Pretty sure work is trying to push me up or push me out and I don’t know if they care which.