Files? Desktops?

I'm a sucker for this stuff. All the various ways of managing time, and thinking about work. Probably keeps me from doing the real thing. Oh well, here's an interesting bit questioning why we use the file/desktop metaphor in Graphic User Interface (GUI) design:

Typically, the GUIs we all learned have used controlling metaphors that were based on physical things like desks and file cabinets and shelves. Even where these metaphors failed or misled, they were still really useful as a way of fording the no-man’s-land between terrified users and seemingly complex, command line-based systems. They built an extra layer of interactivity that made learning a computer much less intimidating and abstract by translating it into work people were already familiar with.

So, flash forward 20+ years and there are a lot of us who haven’t really thought in terms of those metaphors in years. In fact, the “desk” and “file cabinet” metaphors are starting to seem downright quaint; we want ways to increase our productivity and sense of response time, not a permanent set of training wheels, right?

From an interview with Merlin Mann of 43folders fame.