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I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

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Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#361
post #65

I'm hardly afraid but I just think it's poor ergonomics. Same as the move from xset m 0 0 to xinput --set-prop 'pointer:Logitech USB Receiver' 'libinput Accel Profile Enabled' 0, 1 Everything seems to be going this way in Linux land. Longer names, harder to type names, camelcase names, spaces... I'm looking forward to an OS that treats command line ergonomics as a first class feature and where camelcase & spaces are…

I've a feeling you will hate powershell

Needlessly long parameter/command names and the bizarre insistence on capital letters are the #1 and #2 reasons I detest PowerShell. Like GP, I resent that Linux tools are moving in that direction.

Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#362
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for \Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts, of course.

I occasionally try to search for the reasoning behind the location of the hosts file in Windows, and I always come up blank.

Maybe it's from back before Windows had a built-in TCP/IP stack? If it were a third-party/optional driver, having files related to it in a path under system32\drivers would make sense.

Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#363

I work on a complex desktop application, and it's been astounding the number of bugs that have appeared over the years triggered by spaces and other unusual characters in file names. If you do anything with subprocesses or path processing, it's absurdly easy to hit in a thousand different ways, over and over again. Pro tip: rename your development directory (or even better: the workspace path in CI) to put a space an…

Let's not forget return carriages in filenames within apps...

Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#364
Maybe it's just me, but it always seemed like prohibiting spaces and other special characters was a reasonable way to avoid unnecessary complexity (and the bugs that accompany it) when parsing and navigating directory trees and files.

I'm old enough to remember working with 8.3 filenames in DOS, and while the length limitation was maddening, the space part never was. Then Windows 95 came out and all restrictions were thrown out.

Why couldn't we just have a file system that robustly supports long filenames, including variable length extensions, while prohibiting certain special characters - namely spaces, slashes or any directory denoting characters in files, and characters that have special meaning in regex context? (brackets, asterisk, etc.)

Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#365
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used to. The folder was called `Documents and Settings` until Win7.

"Documents and Settings" still exists on Windows 10, as a soft link to "Users".

I know this is completely tangential. But you can Win-R and just type Documents and it will load your documents folder. Same for downloads, pictures, temp (windows temp), and I'm sure many others.

Works from File-Open dialogs and address bars and even in the command prompt you can even do "explorer documents".

Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#366

I am also that age, and kebab-case is the best case for filenames. 2021-01-01-some-important-document.pdf gives me the warm fuzzies. On the off chance that some more differentiation is needed, throw in an underscore and a whole new world opens up

As a side note, in the good ol' times of ISO9660 level 1-4 and the various mkisofs parameters, an underscore _ which is a CAPITAL -, may have given issues, only for the record/as a curiosity:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151007005513/http://www.911cd....

P.S. should anyone want to see/run the actual batch, a copy has been uploaded here:

http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=18962&page=29#entry204...

Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This legitimately made me laugh out loud in my office. The characters reach up off the screen as I reply to this. They overlay the comment above you. Amazing. How?

This is the best generator I found: https://lingojam.com/GlitchTextGenerator

I find http://animalswithinanimals.com/generator/generator.html much more controllable.

Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#368
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the problem. This leads to mess. The Windows model of C:\Program Files\ is much better.

No, it frees you to pick whatever unmessy solution you want. You can do `configure --prefix=/Program\ Files/ ` if you want.

If I am not writing all of my installation scripts by hand, because that would be really intense, then every folder gets filled with random bits of software.

Offering too many similar choices leads to mess. There's nothing fundamentally different between using one or more of these options and using the only option, except that in the second case there isn't any opportunity to make mess.

> You can do `configure --prefix=/Program\ Files/` if you want.

Thanks for the tip! Can't do that with distro repo software though :-/

Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> kebab-case I hadn't heard that before and I love it.

Google considers it too violent apparently. In one of their recent changes to their style guide, they started recommending "dash-case" instead. https://developers.google.com/style/word-list#letter-k

This guide is stupid. They recommend not using “janky.”

Re: I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old

#370

Every week, I encounter a user - just like I did in the 80's - who cannot explain the difference between a file and a folder. "What do I use a folder for?", they ask, in the same breath that they request "some way to organize things logically". The no-filesystem movement has worked hard to eradicate this scourge from user experiences, but I fear that this is the devils work. Computer users should know what a file is…

> The no-filesystem movement

Is that the movement to store all your data as an amorphous pile of crap, and then provide easy-to-use search tools to actually find the content you're looking for?

On one hand, I really like the search tools that come from this. But I still like to actually organize my data, so I can browse it if I want to. Also, these search tools seem to only work well enough on macOS and fall flat on their face in Windows. (and no idea where Linux falls on this)

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