Goo URLs? No Thanks.

The Goo works by using a filename as a kind of tiny URL for files in your workspace. The Goo maps this filename to a location. It can be tricky if we have a file with the same name and different locations - which one do we choose?

Hmmm ... I want to keep everything really light and I think it would be a drag if The Goo required you to use formal URIs: goo://my_thing_in_unambiguous_location/thing.thing). It should just work. Generally the user should not need to worry about location - The Goo should stick to a Thing wherever it is. But what about filename clashes?

The principle of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) helps here. If there is a name clash, do you need both files? Is one incorrectly named? If it is the same file aren't you repeating yourself? If an ambiguity arises The Goo can ask the user to choose a file and optionally delete one.

Computer science loves hierarchy - just think of inheritance, file systems, URIs etc. Personally I'm sick of traversing hierarchies to get to what I need to do. Up, up, down, down, down, no not there, up, up, down. Crazy! Ideally I just want to associate one Thing to another - this means overlaying the hierarchical file systems we're stuck with at the moment. So rather than working in a strict hierachical environment my ideal is more like a blob of associated Things - an association layer - coloured green. ;-)