Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

HFS+ is crazy

liminality.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 211 posts

Re: HFS+ is crazy

#31

Post by coldtea »

idbentley wrote: post #18
kennu wrote: post #2

TLDR: Mac filesystems have resource forks. I guess the author has not used Macs too much, as they have been around since the 1980's.

TLDR: all standard applications for working with files are unaware of resource forks. This is confusing, and hurts new computer users. #consideredharmful

In 15 years of working with Macs (as a programmer and as a semi-pro DAW/NLE user), I've never been confused once by them.

So it sure might be confusing (and I see how) but it's absolutely not very common.

Re: HFS+ is crazy

#32

Post by coldtea »

Skunkleton wrote: post #26

Wouldn't it be cool if Apple just picked up a standard file system from somewhere else? Ext4 for example.

They would still keep something like resource forks. Most modern filesystems have them. Here's the man page for Ext4 and co on them:

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/man5/attr.5.html

Re: HFS+ is crazy

#33

Post by [deleted] »

rogerbinns wrote: post #20

Alternate parts to the main file are present on several platforms, and have the same problems. They are called resource forks on Mac. On Windows/NTFS they are called alternate data streams - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(file_system) - to use specify a colon and name after the filename (eg example.txt:myads). On Unix, Linux, OS/2 etc you can find extended attributes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_file…

[deleted]

Re: HFS+ is crazy

#36

Post by rch »

coldtea wrote: post #24

> Applications — even basic filesystem tools — aren't aware of the additional content. How do you deal with a file with two sets of data? I'm sure there's an Apple-y reason for the existence of this feature, but I can't imagine what it might be. G.K. Chesterton on the matter: In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be…

I prefer the less verbose version:

"Don't just do something. Stand there."

--Marvin Minsky

Re: HFS+ is crazy

#37

Post by msbarnett »

joezydeco wrote: post #25
kennu wrote: post #2

TLDR: Mac filesystems have resource forks. I guess the author has not used Macs too much, as they have been around since the 1980's.

Maybe a lot of us (as I did, to be honest) thought that Mac resources went away with the advent of NextStep/OSX.

That would have completely destroyed backwards compatibility for a large number of Mac OS users' files.

Remember that you could run Mac OS Classic apps on the first few iterations of OS X, and even after you couldn't any more, Carbonized/Cocoized OS X Apps still could open old files you created, many of which heavily used resource forks.

Re: HFS+ is crazy

#38

Post by csydas »

This is likely just my ignorance speaking in regards to the deeper workings of filesystems, but having used OS 7-9 and OS X since release, the issue brought up in the article has never been an issue for myself, my colleagues and friends as we sent data back and forth, or even something I was aware of as I used various Macs.

Is there a specific reason that this becomes problematic to even most power users outside of specific files being read differently by older tools? Reading the Linus rant on HFS+ I can understand to some degree and appreciate where this becomes a problem, but it just seems like the author found a small outlier issue with how an old font was handled with HFS(+) and condemned the entire system.

Re: HFS+ is crazy

#39

Post by eli »

School-Cotton wrote: post #8
cowsandmilk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple abandoned ZFS when Steve Jobs was still alive. Larry Ellison has frequently described Steve Jobs as one of his best friends whom he frequently went on walks with. The idea that Steve could not have gotten Larry to license ZFS seems crazy to me.

Did Jobs really know/care about technical details like what filesystem OS X used?

At one point it was a significant bullet point in the list of features being added to OS X Server. It was a big deal. I'm sure he was aware of it.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-announces-zfs-on-snow-leo...

Re: HFS+ is crazy

#40

Post by jfb »

idbentley wrote: post #18
kennu wrote: post #2

TLDR: Mac filesystems have resource forks. I guess the author has not used Macs too much, as they have been around since the 1980's.

TLDR: all standard applications for working with files are unaware of resource forks. This is confusing, and hurts new computer users. #consideredharmful

... if you're not used to a system that has them.
Post reply on HN