Re: Should Desktop = Home?

[gabor <gabor z10n net>]

On Sun, Oct 03, 2004 at 11:21:51AM +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Steven Garrity">
> 
> > Should we merge the Home directory with the Desktop directory?
> 
> This was discussed to death a long time ago, on both desktop-devel-list and
> nautilus-list. Originally, I thought it would be a good idea too. It's not.
> Probably the best thing to do is go back and read the old threads about
> this.

i've read some of them,

and there seems to be only one central reason:
    -your Desktop is your document store
        -means that every FILE in ~/Desktop is an atomic unit
        -means that deleting any FILE from ~/Desktop is safe
        -means you can delete anything that's on the desktop,
        and all your apps will still work

and this is true, but it also works if we say that:
    -your $HOME (except the .hidden folders) is your document store
        -the same things apply
        -all the apps that create nonhidden folders are buggy

maybe i did not understand all the points raised in this discussion.
you said you thought it's a good idea, but now you think it's a bad
idea. could you tell us why you changed your opinion?

anyway, to have $HOME or $HOME/Desktop is not really the big issue here.
the big issue is that the user has 2 (two) directories where he should
look for files. and that's a bad thing.
so, if we promote $HOME/Desktop as the document store, why do we
provide an icon on the desktop that takes them back th $HOME?

maybe because many-apps-still-save-files-into-$HOME-and-so-on?

to reformulate:
should the users simply forget about $HOME?
if that's the case, we should remove that icon from the desktop.

if it's not the case, we should do things differently...

gabor