On Mar 31, 2008, at 12:53 PM, David Cantrell wrote:
Incidentally, while I don't like case-smashing filesystems, I do think
that case-insensitive filesystems are a good idea, and I wish Unix was
like that. Having files called Configure and configure, or install
and
INSTALL is confusing even for someone like me who has used Unix-a-
likes
almost exclusively for umpteen years.
I'm exclusively a Mac user with respect to GUI, and I'm not confused
in the slightest. Then again, I'm also a C++ programmer.
People who use the shell and even build their own software have much
higher barriers to contend with than case-sensitive filing.
Unfortunately, because of Unix, case-sensitivity is here to stay, so
Unix's bad design choice in that regard makes me have to Hate Windows
and VMS for reasons that I really don't want to Hate them for - while
they made the right choice in being case-insensitive, they made the
wrong choice in being incompatible.
Mechanism, not policy. Let applications implement case-insensitive
file search, or apply case-insensitivity when preventing duplicate
names, if desired by the user. But implementing this in the
filesystem takes the choice away from everyone and makes the filing
ops more expensive.
Josh
