Firstly, thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. And yeah those are the two ways I’ve thought of those terms. What’s weird to me is that saying “directory” to refer to the containing object does sound like you’re referring to just the listing itself, as you said, which is ever-changing metadata and to my knowledge that is not stored in/on the folder itself, it would be in the …whatever equivalent of file allocation tables are now. But, since so many people say directory I’ve learned to use it interchangeably with folder. Directory feels more technical and somehow more closely attached to the concept of a path. I dunno, words are weird!
Firstly, thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. And yeah those are the two ways I’ve thought of those terms. What’s weird to me is that saying “directory” to refer to the containing object does sound like you’re referring to just the listing itself, as you said, which is ever-changing metadata and to my knowledge that is not stored in/on the folder itself, it would be in the …whatever equivalent of file allocation tables are now. But, since so many people say directory I’ve learned to use it interchangeably with folder. Directory feels more technical and somehow more closely attached to the concept of a path. I dunno, words are weird!