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by wlib 1634 days ago
Why do we impose hierarchy so much in file systems? We already allow hard and soft links, so it’s not even a tree anyways. Why not just allow any reference types you want; no name with extensions, but a set of tags. Why not identify files the same way a graph database query identifies nodes?
3 comments

Because hierarchical structures and names are easy to explain to most people. macOS has supported tagging for ages, but I’ve never seen it used extensively or as a complete alternative to tree structure.
So you propose a graph database for data structures, without the persistence layer provided by the file system, right?
Relative paths are extremely useful. Every user gets their own .bashrc and they don't have to fully qualify it to open the file