Re: [boost] [filesystem] Function name changes

From: Stefan Seefeld (seefeld_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-07-04 12:58:17

Vladimir Prus wrote:
> Stefan Seefeld wrote:
>
>   
>> I think it's bad enough that we have inherited this bogus semantics of a
>> file 'extension', so let's not add to that. 
>>     
>
> You suggest that each and every filesystem be modified to carry mime type
> with each file? That would be good, but unless that happens, lots of
> application will have to look at extension.
>   
I'm not suggesting any such modification. (Besides, this is hardly 
something for the filesystem to care about, at least in my understanding 
of the term.) See for example the 'file' manpage on modern UNIX systems 
for how such file-related metadata can be represented non-intrusively.

>> Users can always parse
>> filenames with their own application-specific methods, if to them a name
>> carries a particular meaning.
>>     
>
> As it happens, application-specific methods is very often just looking at 
> file extension.
>   

Then let them do it, but without perpetuating such semantics in generic 
libraries.

Regards,
       Stefan

-- 
      ...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...