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: Ondra Cada <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 09:52:27 +0200
Kenneth,
>
>>>>> Kenneth C. Dyke (KCD) wrote at Mon, 10 Sep 2001 22:07:42 -0700:
KCD> ...A file's
KCD> type is ultimately determined by it's contents....
Well, yes and no. In majority of cases, definitely yes. Though, there are
not that spare cases when the type (whatever way expressed) _adds_ an
important information.
There is an application which uses a simple dictionaries, which are stored
as plain ASCII files. No content analysis can distinguish it from a normal
plaintext.
Now, of course it is important that the fact that _is_ a text should be
known, and those files can be easily and without problems opened in any text
editor (TextEdit, BBEdit, vi, emacs, you name it...).
OTOH, the information that those are _primarily_ files of SomeDictionaryApp
is quite important as well, and (as opposite to the default app binding) it
is independent of user.
Or take a HTML file; it might contain a documentation of NSView, or a help
page for Finder, or a plain formatted document. In a resonably designed
system those three (and possibly many other) would be distinct types, able to
be bound to three different applications by (user-defined) default. Again,
this kind of distinction can't be done by content analysis.
The result is that you need _some_ way of attaching type information to
files. The more flexible the better; hiearachical types would be better than
non-hierarchical ones, and sets would be better than scalars.
Content analysis, of course, can be used as _part_ of this scheme, but
cannot replace it completely (without serious shortcomings).
---
Ondra Cada
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