Two petitions Type/Creator vs. Suffix

[fryke]

The important one is at http://www.petitiononline.com/osxnomd/petition.html ... It's *against* the other.

It's important that you go subscribe the one mentioned in this post.

Type/Creator is a thing of the past in Mac OS X. It's still supported, but Apple's way is to get rid of it over time and use extensions instead. This is important, because it helps people using files in a cross platform environment. And what is the internet? That exactly. Ever heard of PC people that are unable your Word files that ARE in fact compatible? They just need to add a .doc extension, then it'll work. And I guess it'd be good to have that easy kind of compatibility.

[fryke]

yes. of course. dumb of me that i didn't even think of that. sure, i'll convert to windows. are you crazy?!

we have the ability to use 255 characters in a filename in Mac OS X. why should i lose that if the OS uses extensions instead of type/creator information?

of course the old system has its advantages. it's never just black and white. but to completely bring the old system back to os x (and that's what the 'other' petition wants) would include forking of the file system (again), which put all mac users in trouble in the past. often losing one fork while transmitting files over the internet means losing data. give pc people/unix people binhexed files and they don't know what to do with it. stuffit? they've never even heard of it and half of the time stuffit-files get corrupted when uploaded to a server that doesn't do mac.

the world's connected. and we mac users should know best that there isn't only one operating system.

[sveijk]

Originally posted by fryke
of course the old system has its advantages. it's never just black and white. but to completely bring the old system back to os x (and that's what the 'other' petition wants) would include forking of the file system (again), which put all mac users in trouble in the past. often losing one fork while transmitting files over the internet means losing data.

Exactly when did they remove forked file support from HFS? My memory is that HFS+ actually expanded it to n-forked files.

give pc people/unix people binhexed files and they don't know what to do with it. stuffit? they've never even heard of it and half of the time stuffit-files get corrupted when uploaded to a server that doesn't do mac.

So give them zips or gzipped tarballs.

the world's connected. and we mac users should know best that there isn't only one operating system.

This whole debate is just silly. OSX currently has the best metadata support of any OS on the market, via plists and forked files. Why should we retreat just when other OS's and file systems are starting to catch up? Check the Linux kernel lists and you'll see lively debate on how to best handle metadata, including proposals for n-forked file support. The way I see it the only adequate alternative to forked files is to make all (well, really just most) files bundles.

NTFS supports n-forked files, but Windows is too brain dead to use them.

[edX]

ok, i'm confused. the petition is so written in legaleese and geek garble that i have no idea what it is saying. like most such documents it seems to contradict itself and covers too many small points without clearly stating it's overall objective & results clearly. It reads like california law. I am for mac maintaining a user friendly environment. I am for good file translation. I am anti windows & M$. I am for positive changes taking place. I like osx even if i don't understand it as well as the old ways. It basically works the same and offers some advantages. I like having classic built in but seperate. Once they perfect classic so that it supports all older programs to the extent that true boot 9 does, then i will be thrilled. I like joining forces with unix users. We have long been brothers seperated at birth. this collaboration could only get better. On the other hand, i like being part of a smaller community that doesn't have to live in fear of every email containing a virus. We are still small enough that virus creators don't waste much time with us. I have had one virus in over 15 years on a mac and i killed it quickly. My sister's laptop pc was infected and reinfected in less than a month once. I don't mind putting file suffixes on things i send to my sister or post to the web. but i still like being able to name a file 'joe' if i want to.
as for trying to follow the 'standard', M$ has been stealing and corrupting the standard from the time they created windows and probably before that. We are already using the standard. Out comes X, out comes XP. I don't care if the mass followers do the pc thing. i just wish there were a few more people who think for themselves. If we could just get up to about 20% of the market share, we would be in the perfect place. but a quick look at the bell curve on intelligence testing will tell you that is not going to happen. ( i would love to see an iq comparison of mac and windows users).

so knowing this much of where i stand, can any of you tell me which side of the petition i am really on?

[edX]

thank you testuser for giving an explanation i can pretty much understand and i think i agree with you. not that i am going to rush and sign a petition, but i still want to know which side of the debate this puts us on. the petition in this thread or the other? my instincts tell me neither - we agree a little with both.

i was confused about one statement you made -

* you can move the original of a file anywhere, and it's alias will not break (this trick amazes Windows users)

i've been having to fix app aliases all along. or are you referring to the alias a file has to it's launch app. - ie, you can click on a file from anywhere you move it and it will still bring up it's creator.

I had an unusual experience with the latter under osx/classic yesterday. I scanned a pic in classic and saved it in classic photodeluxe. I then opened it with graphic converter for osx and saved as a gif. I did not touch original file except to open it. now when i click on the original, it launches graphic converter, not photodeluxe. i assume this behavior is part of this debate from what you said. this doesn't really bother me, i still know how to launch original app and open the file from menu bar. And i figure this only happens because osx is the predominent system and once i associated the file with a native app, then it took posssession. i haven't tried it, but i assume the file would still launch original app if booted in 9. I still believe that osx/classic is the best of both worlds and i love being able to move between them so easily.

[chevy]

Windows is now (by default) hiding extensions. This is exactly the concept of the file type in MacOS: it exists but you don't see it as long as you don't want to see it.

The only problem: Windows and MacOS use different extensions. So we just need convergence to an unified set of extensions. And guess what ? They are more Windows machines than Macs. Therefore we will converge to Windows extensions... and hide these !

[gerbick]

windows may hide them, by default, but's due to not wanting to confuse the uninitiated user. however, the OS still requires them. that's a difference between Mac (9) and Windows.

anyway, metadata by definition is information, on information. having it as a subsystem would be a cinch to implement, and above all, would be a huge advantage. the OS would know which file would be owned by whom - almost like in a true versioning process, like WebDAV.

It would allow full-time journaling of the OS that would allow better file recovery in case of crashes, or something.

heck, even BeOS had a better file journaling system, and was making strides to file metadata before it died.

[chevy]

the old VAX VMS has multiple versions management.... very simple: it adds a number at the end of the file name to differentiate it.

As all files are time stamped, this could also be used to wrok on multiversions.

MacOS differentiates the owner of a file from the file type. And has 2 times 4 char, with upper-cose lower-case management, whereas Windows by its history only has 3 chars... now that Windows also uses long file names, both can really be equivalent. And I prefer the windows way to hide and reveal the extension as it is much easier to modify than the MacOS type.

What I still miss is an easy to access (and manager) table that shows which application goes with which owner ID and type ID.