[Coco] Re: File extensions

Theodore Evans (Alex) alxevans at concentric.net
Tue Oct 19 19:36:17 EDT 2004


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.

-- 
Theodore (Alex) Evans | 2B v ~2B = ?




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