More Files Please - Jim Nielsen’s Blog
The power of files comes from them being powerful nouns. They are temporary holding blocks that are used as a form of exchange between applications. A range of apps can edit a single file in a single location.
Files represent a “data first vs app first organization”. If you’re planning a wedding, you put everything wedding related into a folder. All your data is now in one place vs. strewn across various apps.
Documents — like a Notion doc — are today’s folders: they contain a list of links to “files” that will open in bespoke applications.
Files encapsulate a ‘chunk’ of your work and allow that chunk to be seen, moved, acted on, and accessed by multiple people and more importantly external 3rd party processes.
Can you imagine working on a codebase — which is a set of files — but the files were locked to a particular IDE? Craziness.
