Metadata
Posted October 29th, 2003 @ 09:01am by Erik J. Barzeski
Shall we simply label this person a neophyte, or a curmudgeon, and move on?
People seem to be making a big deal about this new file system [WinFS, for Longhorn], as if having file metadata were going to be a giant leaping advancement for storing my files. I say "Bullshit!" I don't need or want these "enhancements". Hell, most of my MP3s are untagged. That's why I have naming conventions and folder hierarchies. I know exactly where everything on my computer is and no search feature will ever be more efficient than that. [Link]
Every single one of my MP3s is tagged, and slowly but surely, I'm adding the album art to them. The quick search thing in iTunes easily makes that worthwhile. If there were a good lyrics database, they'd eventually all have lyrics too! That makes for a good QotD….
Donate Life
Posted 29 Oct 2003 at 9:32am #
Yes, you should just move on. People that don't understand the importance of Metadata shouldn't be in IT. (Well okay, they shouldn't have any influence over databases or datawarehouses)
Posted 29 Oct 2003 at 11:08am #
Personally, I think metadata is far better than a hierarchical structure -- at least that I don't need to know about or even see the hierarchy if there's good metadata.
A great example is iTunes, where I have a "cloud" of all my music available without having to bother about file names and directories.
Launchbar is another "cloud" containing all my applications and stuff. It's far better than navigating through a hierarchy, like the start menu in Windows.
Posted 29 Oct 2003 at 5:00pm #
If metadata was useless, we wouldn't need foreign keys in databases, would we? 🙂
- Scott
Posted 29 Oct 2003 at 9:17pm #
Heh, funny. I wrote about this sort of thing back in January. "RDF triples at the inode-level anyone? Heh, heh."
So did Charles. Though, Morbus likes his hierarchy.
Personally, I'd really rather have a big cloud of semi-discrete data that I can cause to snap into some new alignment whenever I like... whether that be by a name I've chosen, containment hierarchy, date created, place worked on, or to which category of animal I've assigned from the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge.
Posted 29 Oct 2003 at 9:55pm #
"...they'd eventually all have lyrics too!"
iLyrics
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19783&vid=107302
"Downloads lyrics for the songs in your iTunes library"
It seems to be "between" developers right now, and of course there's not that many lyrics out there to start with, but it does work partially.