Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [48]
02/15/07
revised chapter 9
added layout notes
02/14/07
revised chapter 8
verified quote in Wikipedia
Here are some of the log files I maintain on my computer:
“movies i’ve watched”: I’ve kept up this log file for years. It lists every movie I’ve seen since I started the file, and a one-line review of each. The dividers in this file aren’t days, as in the example above, but years: the current year’s movies are at the top of the list, followed by last year’s, then the year’s before that, and so on. I also maintain a similar file called “books i’ve read”.
“health”: This is a log file in which I record any illness or medical condition my wife or I have had, and the date range of the symptoms. It’s easy to review later how many times we were out sick, how long things lasted, or what the doctor advised. Many people keep diligent records about the maintenance history of their cars; I think a personal health log is even more important. It also doesn’t require any special tool, just a text editor to create the ASCII file. (Soon enough the technology industry will sell many products promising to solve this need—EasyFamilyHealthLog.com or some such. Not only will these products be unnecessary for bit-literate users, they could be risky. Users should be wary of allowing companies to mediate access to their own health information. This is one bitstream users should have complete control over.)
Canvases and log files can be helpful in many ways, but they come with an important caveat: they’re more susceptible to loss. Since the user always updates the same file when making edits, past versions of the file aren’t automatically stored. This is unlike normal “one-off” files, which naturally result in a trail of past versions to refer to if something goes wrong. (For example, a series of report drafts will all be stored in the project folder as different files, possibly with different dates in their file names.) One errant edit in a canvas or log file, though, can change or delete a lot of data in that one file. Thus it’s important to make frequent backups of your most important canvas and log files.36
Final thoughts on file naming
Some users may wonder why they should bother with any naming scheme, since the computer’s file system attaches its own metadata to every file. For example, the computer stores, and displays, the date and time that each file was most recently modified. This data may occasionally be helpful, but it’s unreliable. Sometimes just opening a file to view its contents can change the modification date, even if no changes were actually made. And if the file system crashes, restoring the files from a backup can change the modification date of all the files. Using the naming scheme, though, ensures that the author initials, creation date, and topic will remain in the file name.
The bit-literate user should never depend on a file system, application, or any other tool to operate properly, and instead should stay focused on the bits themselves. The user’s bits, after all, are the most supremely important thing on the entire computer. The hardware can die, the software can become out of date—anything can happen, but as long as the user’s files are named right, organized well, and backed up, there’s nothing to worry about. The file naming scheme “bakes in” good data to each file name, guaranteeing that the files will be usable and effective no matter where the user takes them. Bit literacy liberates users from being locked into any particular software or hardware. Combined with the storage scheme described in the next chapter, good file names allow the user to confidently say, “Have bits, will travel.”
Chapter 11: Storing Files
Different kinds of files are best organized in different ways. Photos, for example, are best managed within an application dedicated to photos,