2011-07-30

tags, link-trees, and file-trees

7.3: 7.30: adde/tags, link-trees, and file-trees:
. how to integrate tags with folder systems?
placing a file in a folder is tagging it;
 a hierarchy is a tag with segments;
ie, each path name is one tag .
. while a file can be in only one folder,
it can be assigned to many tags .

. tags can be thought of as
a list of links to its members;
and, equivalently, as attributes of a file:
each file or file link can list all the tags
to which it is a member,
just as it can tell the folder path it's in .

link-trees vs file-trees:
. a file-tree is the usual folder tree,
it contains actual files rather than links;
so, a file can be a member of only one file-tree .
. the link-tree is like a file-tree
except it contains only links to files
rather than actual files;
thus, a file can belong to many link-trees,
and may be in many places
within the same link-tree .
7.30:
. the main idea for these distinctions
is that file-trees are low-level concerns;
the only reason they need to be accessed
is when the space limits require
deletions or archiving .
. most file system operations
are concerned only with organizing files,
not managing limited space,
and each activity should have its own
customized view of the file system;
so, most file accesses should be done
through link-trees .
. tags can be applied to either files or links,
depending on the tag's scope:
tags on files are global;
tags on links apply only to
a specific link-tree;
ie, each link-tree has its own set of tags:
both the ones induced by the global tags
belonging to files it's linking to,
and the tags specified by the
user of the link-tree .

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