Re: CRLF fun stuff again...


Subject: Re: CRLF fun stuff again...
From: Chris Garrigues (cwg-dated-976de3b93a5c80b6@deepeddy.com)
Date: Mon Feb 12 2001 - 18:03:51 EST


> From: Marc Miller <itlm019@mailbox.ucdavis.edu>
> Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 14:00:44 -0800 (PST)
>
> On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Bob Rogers wrote:
>
> > . . . I've observed that most Unix and Mac people don't use file
> > extensions at all.
> >
> > I beg to differ; who else but a Unix person would think of compound
> > extensions like .tar.gz, or .i386.rpm ? And could you imagine `make'
> > without extensions?
>
> Alright... correction: tar and gz do require that extension, but most of
> the time, shell scripts aren't marked, nor are binary executables. File
> extensions are more of a convention than a requirement. You could run
> make without file extensions at all as long as the Makefile specifies the
> file names.

I'd like to see you try...Make would be next to useless w/o extensions.

> > . . . File extensions were introduced through DOS, really . . .
> >
> > ;-} Next thing you know, you'll be suggesting that Bill Gates invented
> > GUIs and the Internet . . .
>
> No, he bought out the company who had the original concept for
> Windows. :) What I mean is that until DOS, file extensions were just a
> naming convention. You want to designate that a file is a text
> file? Then put it in a directory called "text" or "txt." Naming
> conventions were there, but they didn't gain the massive popularity they
> have now until DOS came along and started requiring .exe, .com, and .bat
> for executables. But we're getting off-topic here.

That's BS. The use of extensions (and a lot of other things)
in MSDOS was based on the same in CP/M and CP/M got most of those same things
from RT-11 (or was it RS/X?).

Most of the various competing minicomputer OSes also used extensions in a
similar way.

> > Until the early 80's, IIRC, file systems almost universally required
> > extensions; Unix was the (then) rare exception in that it didn't parse
> > "." specially. Then the Mac (actually, the Apple Lisa) changed
> > everything . . .
>
> Ah. Well, then I stand corrected.

If your knowledge of computer history only goes back two decades, you
shouldn't be making these kind of pronouncements.

Chris

-- 
Chris Garrigues                 http://www.DeepEddy.Com/~cwg/
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