Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
From: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Message-ID: <50885@ut-emx.uucp>
Date: 20 Jun 91 06:24:49 GMT
References: <62@ryptyde.UUCP> <1991Jun19.000825.23509@sugar.hackercorp.com> <50849@ut-emx.uucp> <1991Jun20.005257.9400@sugar.hackercorp.com>
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Reply-To: awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin
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In article <1991Jun20.005257.9400@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

>Oh, what happens to the resource fork?

The file gets uploaded as a binary and downloaded into its component parts
by the Mac.  The conversion is handled by the download protocol, i.e.
MacBinary.  The host machine doesn't need to know about the resource fork,
although when I'm downloading BinHexed files from my Sun account, I use
mcvert to convert the BinHex file back to mac binary format.

>If it's got the right format, why shouldn't it?

How does the application know what is in the file?  It is easier to check a
4 character file type resource than to read in some arbitrary number of bytes
of the file to figure out what is in it.  By having file types, it is easier
to define standards, and surpass old ones.  

>All this "file type" business, and "resource forks", is a throwback to the
>old IBM and DEC operating systems.

Woo, such a substantive criticis  I find the Mac use of resources pretty
useful.