[sf-lug] directory tree organization question

jim jim at well.com
Sun Mar 13 14:52:22 PDT 2011


hiya, jason! 
    it was the symlink business that i thought did not 
address the naming issue. 


    as to directory structure, i've decided the following: 

current/  # stuff i'm currently working on 

this/  # stuff i'm likely to work on but is not in current/ 
this/bak/  # copies of stuff that's important 
this/old/  # stuff i probably won't look at 
this/saf/  # copies of stuff that i'm currently working with 
this/yearbeforelast/  # stuff that's older than old 

/old/this/yearbeforeyearbeforelast/  # probably obvious 

/bak/this/  # identical to this/bak/ plus older stuff i want 


    you raise an interesting point: the current technology 
is so different in degree from the technologies of the 
1970s and 1980s that there are strategic differentiations 
that have resulted from the changes in degree. storage 
capacity to some degree has become a non-issue. 
    got lots of new, modern media files? get yourself some 
multi-terrabyte drives, no problem. 
    but the namespace issue persists: do i set up lots of 
shallow directories or few deep directories? my brain 
didn't get bigger in the last few decades: i still have an 
upper limit of areas i can manage as well as an upper limit 
as to the detail of any one area. 
    i may have learned something useful: don't take 
anything very seriously: tolerate exceptions, just remember 
i'm gonna have to manage them. 




On Sun, 2011-03-13 at 15:53 -0500, Jason Turner wrote:
> It's [meta] information mgmt questions like this that reveal just how
> confused I've become.  Once upon a time, I might have had a strong opinion
> about this but have been bitten every which route I traveled so...
> 
> My first thought was similar to Bill's, I think.  Do both!  If you can
> "afford it"(extra disk space, filesystem limits on inodes, certain disk
> operations being a little(or a lot) more expensive).  Specifically, I
> think I'd put "OLD" in subdirs in the physical disk and create a top level
> /OLD "virtual" directory with symlinks.  That just appeals to some
> possibly irrational sense of organization to me.  Perhaps you'd prefer to
> go the other way?
> 
> But you've already said that this approach "doesn't resolve the naming
> strategic question".  And I'm not sure I follow you.  If you did decide
> that you wanted a copy of OLD on removable media, then no problem in my
> "expensive" setup, right?  I just presume disks are getting bigger if you
> wonder why I'm nonchalant about incurring that expense.
> 
> I think I'll stop digging my hole.  I'm thinking about updating from my
> getting-a-little-long-in-tooth G4 laptop so whatever you decide, let us
> know!
> 
> --
> jt
> 
> >
> >     symlinks solves the problem of leanness in the
> > working directories, but doesn't resolve the naming
> > strategic question.
> >     And what if I want the OLD stuff on some external,
> > removeable media? I might be able to put up with the
> > occasional inconvenience of waiting to access old
> > stuff until I get home or hook up the external storage....
> > thanks!
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 2011-03-10 at 10:13 -0800, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> >> On Mon, Mar 07, 2011 at 09:19:32PM -0800, jim wrote:
> >> >
> >> > crikey, ken! that's a good thought, too!
> >> >
> >> > maybe i should do both? have a top-level
> >> > OLD/ tree for some stuff and for other
> >> > stuff have OLD subdirectories, kind of
> >> > like the various bin/ and lib/ and other
> >> > directories scattered around the system.
> >>
> >> What about symlinks?
> >>
> >> Have OLD/x/y/z
> >>
> >> and then use symbolic links in your new tree...?
> >>
> >>   x/y/z/OLD -> ~/OLD/x/y/z
> >>
> >> *shrug*
> >>
> >> -bill!
> >>
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> 
> 
> 
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