The result you're after as an ordinary user is a container holding a group of files, not a "directory" that lets you look up a filename and be told where to go find it. As an implementation, of course, the latter is closer to what a file system "directory" really does, but that's not the most useful metaphor to present to the ordinary user.
And does a phone directory contain individual listings plus other phone directories? No, but that's what "directory" meant to most people back when the name was changed to "folder". And the name change happened when GUIs were first created and needed icons to represent a thing to drop files into. You don't drop files into directories, you drop them into folders or file drawers or something. (Of course, my father can't stop calling a folder a "file", because file folders were so often called "files" at the office way back when. Oh, well.)
I've called them "directories" since before the Mac existed, so the word was long ago defined in my head by the thing itself and could be called a watermelon for all the difference it would make to me, but if I look at it with a beginner's mind, "directory" doesn't seem like a very good name.
From an implementation perspective, you are correct. But that doesn't rebut what your parent comment is saying.
> On the web, any URI that ends with a "/" is specified to look first for an index file--such as index.html--which should contain a listing of links to files and other directories.
That is not my experience with most of the web. I've seen it, but not really that much in the past 6 years.
Which reminds me of iTunes, which I've used on Windows for years. It had an option to automatically consolidate files and store them in a sane location automatically when adding music. It was great.
Oh, and if you broke them it's not like Windows will fix them for you, no you need to head over to Super User and read some solutions.
I was just reading about that today. Alan Kay is to blame it seems, as for so much. :-)
"The desktop metaphor was first introduced by Alan Kay at Xerox PARC in 1970 and elaborated in a series of innovative software applications developed by PARC scientists throughout the ensuing decade. The first computer to use an early version of the desktop metaphor was the experimental Xerox Alto"[0]
For the wider context about desktop/folders etc see [1][2]
I found this [3] story linked to a while ago on here fascinating, about all the user testing done for Windows 95. They did a lot of watching people use the file/folder system, change things around etc, repeat etc. It's kind of funny, the problems people had.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_...
[3] https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-9...
Now, in Win7, I bring up file explorer. Click on "Documents". It says at the top it is located in "Libraries -> Documents". But that isn't where it is. It's in c:\users\name\documents".
I never understood why there are two separate file systems mapping to the same files. It's madness.