alt Hacker NewsI disagree with the grandparent too, but still would argue that an OS's goal is to allow its users to manage their applications and work processes rather than their computer.
It's a hard question to figure out what's the proper level of abstraction for this is. And while I strongly resisted it originally, I am becoming more open to the argument that many people don't need to "know" what a file is, to benefit from their computers - that as long as they can "save" their work, and "send" it from one app to another, they'd be able to get all the productivity that they are looking for.
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I had commented this above, but the OS should be flexible enough to do whatever the user needs it to do. "What it needs to do" is pretty broad, but I think that's the point.
It should be possible to get creative and business work done on a computer while knowing almost nothing about an os but I use Windows at work and the situation with the file save dialogue in office is a farce. I can't imagine how confusing it is for someone who has no conception of what a file is.