File Suffix

[Bob Sneidar]

I believe this started back with Adobe, where you could name a file .jpg or .jpeg. I was under the impression it was for compatibility with OS X which named files any which way, because their OS is not dependent on a dot extension like Windows was. 

If you really want to go way back, Apple Classic didn't use dot extensions at all, and OS X still does not have to. Apple Classic has a header to the file which told the OS all kinds of neat things like the file type and creator. 

I thought this was a much superior system, because you could not fool the OS into opening a file with another application (like a bit of malware), but you COULD intentionally do it by dragging a file onto another application and dropping it. 

The irony is that all these years I have been ranting, "Who the H*** thought it was a good idea to use dot3 to tell the OS what application a document belonged to???" ;-)

Bob


On Jan 20, 2011, at 9:37 PM, Ken Ray wrote:

>> So, my question is "Who the H*** decided, in their little pea-brain, that
>> they would break the convention (that has been around since Pontius was a
>> Pilot) of a filename, a period (a full-stop for all you commonwealth people)
>> and then finally a three character suffix."?
>> 
>> Don't you think that this git should be taken out and tarred and feathered?
> 
> Well, they certainly aren't the first to break this convention:
> 
> .html  (HTML Pages)
> .docx, .xlsx, .pptx (Microsoft Office Documents)
> .torrent (Bittorrent)
> .curl (CURL)
> .ooutline (OmniOutliner Documents)
> .styk, .stykz (Stykz Documents)
> 
> etc...
> 
> Just FYI,
> 
> Ken Ray
> Sons of Thunder Software, Inc.
> Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
> Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/
> 
> 
> 
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