File extensions, was: Re: [Coco] Portal-9 bug report

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 12:17 PM 10/18/04 -0500, Roger Taylor wrote:
>Still, this 
>plot to keep people from seeing filenames as they have always existed, is 
>the oddest thing I've seen MS do.

It isn't odd. Extensions are a Windows operating system thing, not a user
thing -- and similar to the Mac approach, which uses (used?) no filename
extensions. Windows 95 borrowed a great deal of the Mac approach, and it
succeeded in how incredibly Win95 took off in comparison to Win3.1.

And think about when it was implemented -- right after Windows 3.1, which
had 8.3 filenames. The implications of the long filename couldn't be known
yet, nor how people would use (or abuse) them.

Still, the suppressed extension made them significantly more approachable
for lay users. Indeed, programs, files and directories became programs,
documents and folders. The presence of the icon distinguished what sort of
item it was, not the presence of a file extension. This was a good idea in
a kind & gentle world.

I'm hardly in the habit of defending Microsoft, but it was a reasonable
thing to have done (without the advantage of a crystal ball) to a lay
user's advantage.

Dennis