Re: Mac OS X 10.1 File Name Extension Guidelines
Re: Mac OS X 10.1 File Name Extension Guidelines
- Subject: Re: Mac OS X 10.1 File Name Extension Guidelines
- From: Jonathan Hendry <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 14:29:14 -0500
On Sunday, September 9, 2001, at 09:13 , Mark Munz wrote:
Having to send files through a conversion airlock on the way in
or out is an anachronistic throwback to the days of ZTerm and
BBSes, and has no place in an operating system that makes
'sending files' transparent: the /Network folder.
Wait, isn't putting the definition of what type of document I'm dealing
with
a throwback to the early years when disk space was expensive and in short
supply, when saving 4 bytes was crucial, when we used .txt to define a
text
file and such. Apparently we haven't come very far.
Ah, but now we can use extensions like .MDDesktopConfig, or .ooutline,
which beat the heck out of .txt or 4-byte codes.
Besides, the type is, undeniably, useful information. I find it reasonable
to put it where it's readily available.
In such cases, the files are on your computer in RAM only. There's
no way of knowing what OS the fileserver is running. It could be
a Mac running OS X with HFS+ disks. It could be a Linux box running
NFS. It could be a big high-performance Auspex server. As such,
there is no 'airlock' process where the OS can know that it's
transferring a file to another OS and needs to do the conversion.
Actually, this is untrue. The OS knows what volumes are connected and
their
format. The OS is the one reading and writing from the network drive. It
knows what format it is writing to, even if is based on the protocol used.
Not necessarily true at all.
Truthfully, unless someone stands up and fights against it - we'll have
computers 30 years from now that are 100,000 times faster but still
require
us to use .txt to indicate the file is a text document.
Well, frankly, that's not a bad thing, because the information is
mostly there for _human_ consumption, because it _is useful information_.
Apple has previously support mechanisms that allowed metadata for files to
exist on foreign systems including FAT volumes. Perhaps it was not the
most
elegant, but it worked fairly well.
Airlocks.
If we continue going with the lowest common denominator for all decisions
in
the name of compatibility, what is there that distinguishes Mac OS X?
Virtually nothing, certainly not enough to make it worthwhile to pay any
premium.
A nice slippery-slope argument, but not exactly valid. If all
that distinguishes Mac OS is its filesystem metadata, then
Apple is surely doomed.
If OS X willfully refuses to play well with other systems, it
won't be invited to play.