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From: dhmyrdal@lise.unit.no (Dag H}kon Myrdal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn,eunet.micro.acorn
Subject: Re: Continuing gripes about filename conventions...
Message-ID: <1991Feb19.160753.28471@ugle.unit.no>
Date: 19 Feb 91 16:07:53 GMT
References: <795@utrcu1.UUCP> <1991Feb11.100559.15181@and.cs.liv.ac.uk> <1991Feb13.133453.7780@vax1.tcd.ie>
Sender: news@ugle.unit.no
Organization: University of Trondheim
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In article <1991Feb13.133453.7780@vax1.tcd.ie> hughesmp@vax1.tcd.ie writes:
[references to lots of articles deleted...]
>I think they are really annoying too (ps. you can make that a RENAME *.* *.*);
>they make accessing files just too niggly. I am sure it is great, in that it
>means you don't lose old copies of a program by accidentally saving new ones,
>unless you specify that you want no backups when you create the directory. I
>like to be able to save old copies if _I_ want to, not delete them if I don't
>want them.

It seems that my proposal has been misunderstood by several of the
people that have written their comments... I *did not* propose version
numbers in ADFS, just that we should be able to treat *filetypes* like
one can treat version-numbers on VAX... ie: if you want to *access*
the text-file @.file, you should be able to write: 
either "@.file" OR "@.file#FFF" OR "@.file#text"...

Also, ADFS should be able to handle several files in the same
directory having the same filename, but different filetypes!
(And it was *here* I pointed out that this was done similarly on the
 VAX)  - Hope this is clear now ?

>It is. Surely however, you could superficially get around this in the Desktop
>by rewriting the ADFS Filer, so it gave files id numbers or something instead
>of names, and then had a file (like the Mac desktop file. Bleech.) which had
>the corresponding names for id numbers. That'd be fun to write, wouldn't it.

OK, it would be fun to write, but a bloody mess to use :-)
Remember, that a Mac-user can be fooled by the desktop quite easy, but
a Arc-user will often use the CLI, too.... Just imagine the confusion
of having one way of having filenames in the desktop, and a completely
different way using the CLI...

>And how many programs limit the
>filename to ten characters _themselves_?)

Noone, I hope! 
This is a task for the OS, and besides, programs should enable you
to write pathnames+leafname, which can be 256 chars!


--Dag H. Myrdal