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Comment by digitalengineer | Hacker News Reader

(Designer here) Not so irrataional unless you work on an deserted island and no one touches your files. I work in teams and as such everybody follows certain guidelines how to set up and work on a project, how to store the files, how to save the communication with the client and what not. Working on the desktop is a sure thing to lose sight of your versions and a sign of a bad backup-policy.

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There are tons of files that are created one-off and then sent by e-mail or attached to database systems. These files are usually exports (pdfs, screenshots, lower res images) from the actual working document that needs to be accessible by other people. IMO the desktop is the perfect place for that junk - it's easily accessible from any program, the files are not needed anymore after a short while, yet they keep staring me in the face so I won't forget to delete them at some point.

Also, it's kind of a neat ritual to scan through and delete all your desktop stuff right before starting a new project.

Perhaps I'm paranoid but if it's for a client we keep the export files as well. Mostly becasue there are several versions of design going to the client and they reponds to those files. What's on my desktop right now is (indeed) exported stuff for my own little side projects, some logo's I need to check, some completed and archived projects that I need to borrow from and a copy of some handy UI stuff I keep using for new designs.

But if my PC crashed right now, no projects would be harmed. And if I need a older version of something it's all on the server. If I accidentily delete an entire project I can get it back in 5 min.

I see where you're coming from and it makes sense in your case. The way I work I've never needed an exported pdf or screenshot twice. Our servers are redundant and if all of them would fail I'd just go home. ;) I'm often working home office anyway.

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