6 Apr
2018
6 Apr
'18
4:46 a.m.
On 4/5/2018 5:23 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
Case folding I find funnier however. Back in the days
of 5 and 6 bit
codes, particularly when file names were stored in things like rad50
it made perfect sense. The basic character code did not handle upper
and lower well, and many keyboards were only one case anyway. But by
the time of the 8 bit byte, CP/M and it's child DOS, blindly follow
along. Instead of thinking why it was done and since we have a new
file system format and thinking -- hmmm maybe we don't need to have
the same limitation.
I come from the world of SIXBIT on TOPS-10. One of my first tasks for
LIRICS/BOCES was to write a replacement for MIC, while still in High
School. The TTY I used did only upper case. So all the comments in that
source code were in upper case.
When it came to real ASCII, and keyboard input, you could never assume
that the TTY was going to give you lower case by default (or upper, for
that matter). What to do? Be case-insensitive in everything you do.
While I understand the simplicity of the code that had to deal with
filenames in UNIX (no flipping bits), I don't understand why a file
README.TXT is different than readme.txt in UNIX.
Now, I love UNIX - I wouldn't have it any other way, but I often wonder
what the design goal was. As for a "limitation" for case-sensitive file
names, it's more like a feature to me.
art k.