Subject: Re: CRLF fun stuff again...
From: Marc Miller (itlm019@mailbox.ucdavis.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 12 2001 - 17:00:44 EST
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.
> . . . 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.
> 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.
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