[Coco] Re: File extensions

[Mannequin*]

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 16:36:17 -0700
Theodore (Alex) Evans <alxevans at concentric.net> wrote:

> On Oct 19, 2004, at 11:41 AM, Roger Taylor wrote:
> 
> > I think extensions are necessary because people are the ones doing the 
> > most looking and identifying.  Software can use the extension just 
> > like an internal magic number, but people cannot immediately see 
> > inside of a file to examine the contents, let alone a "magic" number 
> > (usually 4- to 8-character acronyms).
> 
> I agree that extensions are great for people, but an OS should not 
> primarily rely on them for identifying files.  In general users don't 
> really care if a picture is a JPEG, a GIF, a PNG, a TIFF, etc.  they 
> just care that it is a picture.

The problem with the picture file analogy is that people _do_ care because of
copyright and patent issues.

-M.