Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!sumax!polari!6sigma!blm
From: blm@6sigma.UUCP (Brian Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: System 7.0 & Aliases
Message-ID: <299@6sigma.UUCP>
Date: 7 Sep 89 17:26:43 GMT
References: <1430@intercon.UUCP> <951@cbnewsk.ATT.COM> <4453@cps3xx.UUCP> <1436@intercon.UUCP> <1399@esquire.UUCP>
Reply-To: blm@6sigma.UUCP (Brian Matthews)
Distribution: na
Organization: Six Sigma CASE, Inc.
Lines: 30

In article <1399@esquire.UUCP> sbb@esquire.dpw.com writes:
|In article <1436@intercon.UUCP> amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) writes:
|>I may just be staid and boring, but I don't see the point of all of the
|>people that say how File IDs will make it so much easier to "move files
|>around."
|At first I felt as you do, Amanda, but then I thought about problems
|that hierarchical paths present when Apple implements their new
|publish/subscribe method of inter-application communication (IAC).
|Since applications will be storing references to files, you really
|don't want to have your word processor draw your company's logo on
|your letter using a live link to the file ``hd:drawings:picts:logo'';
|rather, it should be looking for FILEID=1823 or whatever.  Chances are
|I'm going to move that ``logo'' file at some point, yet I don't want
|my word processor to choke in 6 months because as far as it can see,
|the file no longer exists.

What happens if Joe Random User decides to change logos, or tweek the
existing one.  He wants to save the old logo, so in the Finder he moves it
to logo.old.  He then goes into Illustrator or whatever, and creates a new
file called logo.  He then goes into his word processor and prints a letter.
No new logo.  He goes back to Illustrator, and sure enough, the new logo.  It
even prints nicely.  Back to the word processor.  No new logo.  After a
sufficient bit of screaming and hair pulling, Joe might realize that every
file has two names.  One that is shown in the Finder and is real easy to
change, and one that isn't shown and can't be changed.  Of course Joe
might never realize this, and throw his Mac out the window instead.
-- 
Brian L. Matthews			blm@6sigma.UUCP
Six Sigma CASE, Inc.			+1 206 854 6578
PO Box 40316, Bellevue, WA  98004