Re: Flame Bait! Windows vs: The Unices

From: Programmer Dude (Chris_at_Sonnack.com)
Date: 01/23/04 

Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 15:45:53 -0600

Randy Howard wrote:

> IIRC, Richard claimed to be using the .doc extension prior to
> the existence of Word.

"...20 years..." Yeah, okay, he did get there first. (I think
WordStar might have used .doc way back then?)

> I know for a fact that I did.

I didn't. Even then it was a common enough extension that there
was confusion.

> I've given up on it and use .txt now instead on Windows platforms.

You can use anything you like. Doesn't need be three chars anymore.

> Otherwise, why is a .doc file not a suitable extension for a
> document?

Personally, I think it's a bit vague. Anything can be a "document".
But you CAN use anything you like. You CAN set the association to
anything you like. You DON'T NEED to invoke the default association.

But it's there when you do want it. Just not seeing the problem...

> Why should the file extension be the determinant of file type,
> rather than the first n bytes, or something supremely rational
> like /etc/magic? :-)

Yet they can be wrong, too! In fact, the Mac may have the right
idea in binding the app within the document.

>> Or .document or .docu or any of lots of possibles.
>
> Now you're just being silly.

Why? I use .list rather than .lst, .text rather than .txt and .index
rather than .idx (just to name a few).

> BTW, we're just darn lucky that MS didn't decide to associate .txt
> files with Word as well.

That's NOTEPAD's job. (-: 

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