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Genuine curiosity, do I understand it correctly you specifically make a sub-directory under the default ~/Documents directory for the purpose of managing your documents?

I don't find this weird or unusual at all, just different than how I've handled file management on computers since I was a child using the family computer; I did notice the way computers stored program data when I was first learning computers and while I had a vague understanding of how programs worked, the conclusion I came to as a child was "just don't mess with the stuff the OS uses and make your own folders instead."

Usually I have my personal documents in some folder(s) under / or on dedicated drives, separate from the OS/program directories entirely whenever possible, and I treat any pre-existing folder structure as "the OS' and programs' folders" and just don't use them at all (with the exception of ~/Desktop and ~/Downloads which more or less I use normally) I understood early on that developers might make their workspace just about anywhere so I don't particularly care about the system defaults and instead try to keep my data in its own location outside of any system defaults whenever possible. The before-mentioned ~/Desktop and ~/Downloads I treat just as temporary directories for me and fair-game for other processes, so my workflows specifically don't keep any personal or sensitive data in common system directories.




I did not ever specifically do that. If I was starting up a new digital life now I would probably do that. But when I started using OSX, I made a few directories in ~/Documents (before it became apparent that every program under the sun was going to have a chance of shitting something in there, and the vast bulk of what I do lives in one of those directories.

(Actually, it lives in a sub-directory of one of those directories, with a disused organizational scheme lurking around it, but, well, if you want more details on that there's a whole blog post: https://egypt.urnash.com/blog/2019/01/06/how-i-work-file-org... )

Back on the Amiga I had something like four partitions on a then-massive hard drive, one for the OS, and three for My Stuff, which I managed however the hell I pleased. But that's not really an option on a laptop.




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