Unix Haters' Club
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Controlled by users who don't know what it means, as part of something they edit routinely. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, Windows now seems to just hide the file extension. You can still edit it, if you want to, but I fail to see what difference that makes. I mean, you can edit extended attributes, too. Do users routinely change the extensions on files? It's not been my experience that they do.
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So you could still just name the PDF copy ".pdf". Or you could name it, "this file is a PDF!!!!!!" or whatever.
I don't know why this isn't obvious to people. That part of the file name becomes nothing more than part of the name, which is completely appropriate.
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I can't find a more digestible version of this in my ten-second search: RFC 2822. It's only 13 years old. The RFC it supercedes is over thirty. This is the format of HTTP message bodies and MIME email. Stop being ignorant.
FTP is broken for many reasons, lack of metadata doesn't even make my list. Stop using broken protocols.
Is the MIME type saved with the downloaded file? Yeah, sure, the browser will use Content-Type if you're viewing something served from a server, but once it's been downloaded that data is lost. Linux sure as fuck doesn't use it.
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Say what?
Ok so please point me to the method of sending those extended attributes through email. Or FTP transfer. If you did that, you might actually counter the point I'm making here.
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You could write dates the way people write dates on paper! "8/21/2014.txt" INCREDIBLE!
What the fuck, there's no 21st month in 2014 you retard!
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Do users routinely change the extensions on files? It's not been my experience that they do.
"New Text Document.txt" -> "myNiftyWhatever.extensionForSpecficTextFormat"
I've also been known to change "foo.extensionBlockedByEmailServer" to "foo.extensionNotBlockedByEmailServer" and back.
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Well, for one, they're an optional component. And for two, when were they added to the kernel?
It's Linux. Everything is optional. They should be part of default builds though, <arsepull>and probably are in most distributions</arsepull>. They are required for SELinux, which is pretty popular amongst serious distributions.
Page I linked says: "they are supported in the 2.6[8] and later versions of the kernel", another page I found says "17 December 2003 - Linux 2.6.0 was released". So it has been a while.
Is the MIME type saved with the downloaded file?
Like I said, there's no excuse. It doesn't happen now but it should.
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Ok so please point me to the method of sending those extended attributes through email.
Did you read the link? Read what you're replying to! Short answer: MIME headers.
Or FTP transfer.
Read what you're replying to! FTP is broken, stop using it. Or put up with the results, whatever.
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Read what you're replying to! FTP is broken, stop using it. Or put up with the results, whatever.
Yeah that ain't really helping your case there.
Sure it's broken in 2014, but we're talking about shit that happened in the 80s and early 90s, when FTP was the only choice and GUESS WHAT the Unix developers YOU KISS AND LOVE AND SEX WITH they fucked up!!! And fucked us all up by extension! WHEE I LOVE SHITTY COMPUTERS!!! THANKS FOR GIVING US SHITTY COMPUTERS!!!
I'm gonna eat my lasagna.
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FTP was always broken, but its brokenness was mostly hidden until the 90s. I can't defend its design or many of the decisions made then. But current, existing, not-broken file transfer protocols exist that can transfer metadata intact, including the most popular network protocol in the world. Every filesystem on every system of any relevance can maintain metadata on the filesystem. People still insist that filename extensions are better than actual, real metadata. Those people are broken. Blaming the 'file' command doesn't help, it's also horrible. Blaming ancient unix programmers is a diversion, most other systems of the time were no better. The Mac is an outlier, unfortunately nobody followed that example.
The filename extension discussion doesn't even touch on other metadata that could be maintained with a decent solution, eg. all the stuff that gets jammed in EXIF headers in JPEG, or other headers in other file formats, all different.
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Page I linked says: "they are supported in the 2.6[8] and later versions of the kernel", another page I found says "17 December 2003 - Linux 2.6.0 was released". So it has been a while.
That's not the long. This was set in stone decades ago.
Like I said, there's no excuse. It doesn't happen now but it should.
Okay, but that's somehow not the fault of Unix and Linux? I mean, if they're not even trying to do it..
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The Mac is an outlier, unfortunately nobody followed that example.
Right; and why is that? Could it be... could it be because the system that ran networks, including the most important network of all: the Internet, didn't have any way of supporting MacOS's brilliance? And why was that? Because Unix idiots hadn't heard of it, or because Unix is a stagnant piece of broken shit that's been broken for decades and will never be fixed even when the sun expands and consumes the Earth?
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will never be fixed even when the sun expands and consumes the Earth
Seems to me that would constitute a rather insurmountable barrier to fixing it.
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That's not the long. This was set in stone decades ago.
By shitty systems with 8.3 file naming limitations?
Okay, but that's somehow not the fault of Unix and Linux?
Unix is definitely complicit, along with every other system in existence at the time, but they share less blame than shitty systems with shitty 8.3 file naming limitations. Linux suffers from Linus' lack of imagination and followed unix too closely.
Right; and why is that? Could it be... could it be because the system that ran networks, including the most important network of all: the Internet, didn't have any way of supporting MacOS's brilliance?
I think it's because the dominant desktop system of the time couldn't get beyond shitty FAT filesystems. Metadata is really hard when nobody else is doing it; lowest common denominator and all that. Users would transfer files from Mac to DOS/Windows and poof! metadata gone.
Unix didn't come into it until the Internet got popular, mid to late 90s, and started to displace sneakernet. It didn't help but it wasn't the main cause. Mac OS X was released in 2001 and that's the end of useful metadata. Linux supported metadata from 2003 or so but nobody used it. NTFS supported metadata from 1993 but nobody even used NTFS until XP.
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People still insist that filename extensions are better than actual, real metadata.
Those people are broken.
Quoted (and embiggened) for truth.There's so much wrong with file extensions as a substitute for real metadata, it's difficult to even know where to start. If you (looks sternly at @morbiuswilters, despite suspecting his argumenting is purely because it's against what @blakeyrat says ) fail to even see there's a problem, you're worse than the worst of the worst - you're a fucking cretin.
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There's so much wrong with file extensions as a substitute for real metadata
That's true, but that's what you've got the rest of the filename for!
I so wish I was joking…
