Mike Koenecke wrote:
>
> On or about Mon, 24 Sep 2001 21:08:50 -0600, Chuck Simmons
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> allegedly wrote:
>
> >The reason that Windows went to using the file suffix to carry metadata
> >was because of a desire to eliminate any need for a powerful text shell
> >for the OS. That is, the dialog to get a file open in the correct
> >application is clumsy without command line interface if the file type is
> >not identified in file name. On the other hand, the strong file
> >associations create clumsyness in other applications. For example, I
> >create on a Windows system where I work plain text files with a bunch of
> >different suffixes. I can't use a .txt suffix for these files because of
> >name overlap (the text file name indicates data content and the suffix
> >indicates the exact format of the data). Dealing with this in Windows is
> >clumsy. I did consider simply moving the whole mess to Unix where the
> >clumsyness vanishes but current customer installed OS base makes that
> >impossible. Thus I suffer and the customers suffer. (They seem cheerful
> >in the face of it.)
>
> I used to have that problem. I would keep contracts with a .CON
> extension, letters as .LTR, and so on. Then I found that organizing
> worked better and more logically using appropriately-named
> subdirectories instead.
I rejected this idea because it would create a monster only its mother
could love. It seemed clearer to put the totality of code for four
machines in single directories oriented to specific electronic and
mechanical configurations (which go together in my case). In other
words, a pure project orientation was favorable given I'm a one horse
show dealing with several projects all needing the same junk but with
differences. Had I had software resposibility alone, a different path
might have worked but I am lead (read as only) engineer at the board
level and analog design (I have a digital design couterpart who has the
same kind of mess I have). Hierarchically, our product is one level
above where we are. This is called applications engineering. After you
create a product, you have to help people learn to use it. Call it the
final let down for a team that spent years on design. Now we have sell
the thing.
Chuck
--
... The times have been,
That, when the brains were out,
the man would die. ... Macbeth
Chuck Simmons [EMAIL PROTECTED]
