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

[James Dessart]

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:

> 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.

The current Mac OS X system uses a combination of the old file type and
creator codes (not previously visible to the user, except through icons
and "Kind" listings), file name extensions and user-set file-application
associations to determine what application a file will be opened with when
double-clicked. It's a bit convoluted these days, but that's what you get
when you try to be everything for everyone. :)

James