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Comment by drcongo

4 years ago

Here's the counter argument: https://heyluddite.com/post/4043411544/how-to-name-folders

Oh, wow. And 9 years old. Thanks for showing me this.

People do just naturally put numbers in front of things, though, and I’m convinced it’s to solve the muscle-memory issue. Or it’s that I generally work with nerds and we find it easier to remember that our folder is 34 in the list of 67 rather than remembering that it’s ‘SQL designs’ or whatever.

I mean literally back at a major bank 15 years ago the root structure just had numbers in front of every folder. Long before I meddled with it.

  • FWIW, I've seen a number of financial systems, and even though accounts in the hierarchy might have names, they often have a hierarchically-oriented number with them.

    e.g. Accounts Receivable #15000, A/R for Foo Corp #15001 and so on.

    • Some accounting laws actually mandate a numbered system of accounts that is a bit like Johnny Decimal, just without subdividing for specific companies (though it's definitely possible in some approaches - it's just that you need to categorize according to official hierarchy as well)

Counter counter argument:

New Folder New Folder(2) New Folder(3) New Folder(4) New Folder(5) New Folder(6) New Folder(7)

Muscle memory can be important as well. If I'm going through the Finder/Explorer, being able to pick the 4th item down and having it be the one I'm concerned about is helpful.

Johnny Decimal also helps with avoiding having too wide of a hierarchy, as well as having too deep of a hierarchy. Can't be more than 10 folders wide at the area or category levels, and can't be more than 4 levels deep.