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: "John C. Randolph" <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:26:26 -0700
On Monday, September 10, 2001, at 10:07 PM, Kenneth C. Dyke wrote:
[a very thought-provoking discussion of file metadata]
Back in the days of NeXTSTEP, I often said that the single biggest wart
in NeXT's design was that there still were programs and files, as
opposed to objects. Within each app we have objects, and they act in
various ways, but at the top level of the system we're still essentially
working procedurally.
In Perl, there are only three kinds of variables: scalars, linear
arrays, and associative arrays (dictionaries). Each of these presents
different data depending on context.
On this list and elsewhere, I've described the idea of an image which
could be a jpeg if you looked at it that way, or a .gif if you looked at
it another way. Suppose it could also be an infinite-length quicktime
movie, or an array of RGB values, all again depending on how we look at
it.
What I'd like to see the Mac (or it's successor's) user experience move
towards, is one where users really *don't* have to know or care about
the metadata (which is what type and creator codes were trying, but
*failed* to achieve.)
What if we didn't need TextEdit.app, because simply loading an NSText
object into memory would suffice? (Every object its own app, using or
not using the framework code as appropriate?)
Does Apple have a blue-sky R&D department anymore? Yes, I know about
Crandall's work on crypto and wavelets and so forth, but is there a
project to invent the system which is as much of a leap beyond NeXTSTEP
as NeXTSTEP was beyond DOS?
-jcr
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