Re: RGSG - File & Edit Menus

[Samuel Solon <ssolon usa net>]

>
>Saying memory structures are files shows that you use the term File in a
>way that nobody else does, either inside or outside the computer industry.
>Please check out the FOLDOC definition, which I think most people will
>consider reasonable.  You can find it at:
>

I don't know about any other languages but to appeal to the "definition" of
an English word to prove anything is usually pointless. Nobody decides what
words really mean and their meaning changes over time.

Certainly, outside the sphere of computer usage I doubt anyone would even
think of a sequence of <n> sized areas of magnetization accessed using a
set of hierarchal data structures stored on a rotating magnetic medium as a
file.

The best way to think of "File" as the name of that menu that appears in a
large number of computer programs is as a verb. The first set of
definitions in my "Webster's New World Dictionary of the American
Language", second college edition, copyright 1976 are the verbs:

1. a)to arrange (papers, etc.) in order for future reference, b) to put (a
paper, etc.) its proper place or order

2. to dispatch (a news story) to a newspaper office

3. to register (an application, etc.)

4. to put (a legal document) on public record

5. to initiate (a divorce suit or other legal proceeding

I'm sure a more recent dictionary would list computer related usages also.

This is the sense we should be using the "File" menu. As a mechanism to
getting things into and out of a program. Whether its from a disk file,
network connection, database, scanner or to a printer.

One of the basic uses of many applications is to modify information, or
create it. The "File" menu is where someone would look for operations that
get things into the program or for a way to save information so it can be
used in another form (a file for another program, a printout to get lost on
the desk) or reused in the same program later.

There seems little reason to spread get/out information out among the
menus. If you want to load something into a program or save something from
a program the operations should be clustered in one, consistent, place; the
"File" menu.

Renaming it just obscures its function as the holder of "filing" operations.

Sam Solon
ssolon@usa.net