[Leica] Lightroom & Bridge

[reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid)]

I've been using and programming computers for 41 years now, and I've learned 
a few self-preservation principles:

1. Disks always fail and you should always back them up. This is the first 
and greatest commandment.

2. In order to store things on disks, people build structures on top of 
them. People are fallible, and the structures that they build layered on top 
of disks are imperfect. Use as few of those as possible. This means, for 
example: store things in flat files whenever you can. Use databases at your 
peril. Use structured information repositories (address books, indexed mail 
folders, ...) at your peril. Never ever ever ever keep the master copy of 
anything in a database or something that resembles a 
database unless you back it up to flat files every day.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

3. If you have some data that matters to you, and you'd like your children 
to be able to have it after you are gone, store that data in a flat file. If 
you can't (e.g. a photograph) then store that data in something that 
resembles a flat file as closely as possible, e.g. a simple file system.

4. You cannot hide complexity under a veneer of simplicity. If something is 
complex, admit it and deal with it. As soon as you can, make it simpler, or 
walk away from it.

5. Never use v1.0 of ANYTHING. It's best to start with v2.1, but sometimes 
v1.5 will have to do.

Lightroom violates #2, #4, and #5. Violating #2 is a design felony; the 
others are misdemeanors.


> I agree Brian. I don't use any software that dicks around with where  
> stuff is on my hard drives. I hate address books and email programmes  
> where you have to go looking for the basic information. Maybe it is  
> because I am an old programmer but I feel anything which  unnecessarily 
> moves me away from knowing exactly where my files are  is a complete 
> no-no. I was about to be seduced but those things  extinguish any glimmer 
> of interest I had :-(
> I screamed and forced quit on Apples iPhoto when I tried it - the  first 
> thing it tried to do was move my photos aaaaaaaaaaah! I got rid  of the 
> programme.
> Frank