Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] Files starting with .

From: Harry Zink <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 00:12:38 -0700

>How do I get files starting with . to show up when I mount a volume on my 

You should *NOT* have files starting with the period character.

This is bad under any UNIX file system, this is also bad under the 
Macintosh file system.

This will be just as bad under Mac OS X, which is UNIX based, and you 
won't be able to patch.

Avoid it. 

Norton even alerts you that you have files starting with he period, as 
being bad.

There is absolutely *NO* reason to have files starting with the period.

Period.

Harry

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From: "Randall S. Winchester" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 03:27:08 -0500 (EST)

ls -ld ~rsw/.??* | wc -l
     263

These are all related to various software and Unix traditions.

The "dot files" as the are refered to in Unix-speak, are common place, and
if Mac OS X is Unix based then it will find a way to support "dot files" as
well.

Randall

On Sun, 25 Oct 1998, Harry Zink wrote:

: >How do I get files starting with . to show up when I mount a volume on my 
: 
: You should *NOT* have files starting with the period character.
: 
: This is bad under any UNIX file system, this is also bad under the 
: Macintosh file system.
: 
: This will be just as bad under Mac OS X, which is UNIX based, and you 
: won't be able to patch.
: 
: Avoid it. 
: 
: Norton even alerts you that you have files starting with he period, as 
: being bad.
: 
: There is absolutely *NO* reason to have files starting with the period.
: 
: Period.
: 
: Harry
:

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From: Juergen Christoffel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 17:32:51 +0100

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 00:12:38 -0700
   From: Harry Zink <[email-masked]>

Huh, what are you talking about? Almost all rc files under Unix start with
a period. So I'd say this is fine under the Unix operating system.

	--jc

P.S. The only thing I'd call "bad" is the bad design of a filesystem which
denies us the right to use all of the printing characters (e.g. ':') in
filenames without any need for such a restriction.

---

From: "Charles H. Seraphine" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 14:57:26 -0500 (EST)

> a period. So I'd say this is fine under the Unix operating system.

Bad in the sense that it makes the "invisible", which is generally only 
the norm for non-working files (rc's, configs, whatever).

> filenames without any need for such a restriction.

There is indeed a good need for this-- the colon is the path delimiter,
just like / in Unix.  Check the get info on a file or alias, or look into
AppleScript to see this in action.  (Your trash can:  "hard drive:Desktop
Folder:Trash")

-Chip

Hanlon's Razor:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

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From: Neil McAllister <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 13:52:41 -0800

>AppleScript to see this in action.  (Your trash can:  "hard drive:Desktop

I believe the gentleman's point is that it seems pretty silly for an OS
that prides itself on its user-friendliness to aribtrarily decide that
nobody should wish (or in any case, be allowed) to use the colon character
in filenames.  With all the "extended" characters the Mac has available,
they could have perhaps picked a more-innocuous path delimiter.
--
Neil McAllister, Systems Administrator
Primo Angeli Inc., San Francisco, CA USA
mailto:[email-masked]    http://www.primo.com

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From: Brian Bergstrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 08:44:20 -0600

[snip]
>they could have perhaps picked a more-innocuous path delimiter.
Hmmmm... You wouldn't want to know how many files I have named
"month/day/year" on my Mac. Maybe "they" should have
"...picked a more-innocuous path delimiter.". I hate it when an OS
arbitrarily decides that I don't want to use the forward slash character
in filenames. ;)

BTW, "they"(Apple) did a lot of studies on the filesytem directory
delimiter, just like
they did on the one or two button mouse thing. Guess what, Apple chose ":"
because
most users in their studies said that would be the least likely character
they would
use in the name of a file. I wouldn't call that arbitrary.
Brian
Brian Bergstrand
Network Specialist - ACS
Northern Illinois University
815-753-8547
[email-masked]
"... Understand, though: I have a PC, and when you get one of those
running right, you don't touch a thing." John Dodge - PCWeek

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From: Juergen Christoffel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:22:42 +0100

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 08:44:20 -0600
   From: Brian Bergstrand <[email-masked]>

   >in filenames. 

Exactly, that's my point.

   BTW, "they"(Apple) did a lot of studies on the filesytem directory
   delimiter, just like they did on the one or two button mouse thing.
   Guess what, Apple chose ":" because most users in their studies said
   that would be the least likely character they would use in the name of a
   file. I wouldn't call that arbitrary.

They did a lot of studies? That makes me curious: do you have a pointer as
to where to find these? Given the visual nature of the user interface they
didn't need a delimiter at all: no command line interface as in Unix with
the need to use a printable character which one can type, and no, MPW and
AppleScript did appear much later; internal structures could cope with any
byte code and even could use schemes without an explicit delimiter at all.

	--jc

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From: Sak Wathanasin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 07:54:12 +0000

In reply to Neil McAllister's message of the 25/10/98 at 13:52 -0800,

> they could have perhaps picked a more-innocuous path delimiter.

Innocuous for whom? They took this approach in MPW (where, e.g., the escape
char is '', option-d for those with MIME-challenged mailreaders, instead of
Unix's '\'), and that led to all sorts of complaints from people who

a) couldn't send scripts in ASCII email
b) found it hard to type on non-US keyboards (I lied: it isn't always option-d)
c) different

And what about (e.g.) Kanji filenames? If they'd picked one of the chars with
the top-bit set, they might have ruled out not just 1 symbol, but a whole range
of them. Or is this not a problem with Unicode?

The point is that somebody somewhere gets inconvenienced. And anyway, I think
you're all blasting away at the wrong target: the 31-char limiatation is a much
more serious problem (esp in double-byte systems). I say this with some feeling
since I'm in the midst of a biggish Java project...

Sak Wathanasin
Network Analysis Limited
178 Wainbody Ave South, Coventry CV3 6BX, UK

Internet: [email-masked]
Phone: (+44) 1203 419996                    Fax: (+44) 1203 690690

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From: Andrew McNabb <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:46:41 -0600 (CST)

> byte code and even could use schemes without an explicit delimiter at all.

It's handy with programming or any task that requires typing in a filename
to be able to use the delimeter.  It wouldn't do any good if it were some
non-printable character.

----------------------------------------------
                Andrew McNabb
             Argus Systems Group
          [email-masked]
----------------------------------------------
  I am an International Arms Trafficker!!!!!
http://online.offshore.com.ai/arms-trafficker/
----------------------------------------------

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From: Steve Lay <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:34:25 +0000

>byte code and even could use schemes without an explicit delimiter at all.

Now of course every Mac trivia buff knows that this is not true.  Folders
started out life as an expensive illusion maintained by the Finder.  After
all, how many files can a person get on a 720K floppy disk?  In those days
you really could type the colon in the open file dialog box, and indeed
this continued on with syntax such as "::file" for going up a directory.

Steve