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RE: Reality check needed ....

• To: "'Thomas B. Passin'" <tpassin@c...>, <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Reality check needed ....
• From: Bill de hÓra <bill.dehora@p...>
• Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 14:42:02 +0100
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <000801c23e10$ea313f10$fe193044@tbp1>
• Organization: Propylon
• Reply-to: <bill.dehora@p...>

> From: Thomas B. Passin [mailto:tpassin@c...] 
>
> But file extensions are __very helpful__ for humans, just 
> like human-readable element names are.

I think they're helpful insofar as that's what humans are given as help.
What's really helpful is using a mouse click to open a file or a browser
switching on the mime type; I don't need an extension to do that. The
problem is that the extension is information about the data type of the
file; putting it in the name means you can change the type without
changing the data. (Perhaps we should throw the file size and the
permissions into the name as well... ;)
 
Extensions are less helpful than names. And I like what David Gelernter
said about file names: roughly, file names are like animals; if you have
two or three pets you give them a name; if you have a herd of sheep you
don't bother.

regards,
Bill de hÓra
..
Propylon
www.propylon.com 

 

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    • From: "Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@c...>

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