Hi,

On Jan 17, 2008, at 12:16 AM, Linus Torvalds wrote:
quoted text
> On Wed, 16 Jan 2008, Pedro Melo wrote:
>>
>> The difference I see between us is that if I tell my filesystem  
>> that I want to
>> name my file with a particular string encoded in X, users using  
>> encoding Y
>> will be able to read it correctly. I  like my filesystem to make  
>> that work for
>> me.
>
> The difference I see between us is that when I tell you that this is
> exactly the same thing as your file *contents*, you don't seem to  
> get it.

I get that you think its the same thing.

What I don't get is why a user should be forced to know what type of  
encoding he and the other users are using on all the layers going  
down to the filesystem. If two users on different systems or in  
different configurations, choose the same unicode string as the name,  
why do we need to make it harder for things to just work out?

The content of the file is sacred, we both agree on that. We disagree  
on the filename, because for me it's more important that equal  
strings, even if encoded to different byte sequences, should be  
treated as the same file.

quoted text
> An OS that silently changes the contents of your files is *crap*.
>
> Get it?

I was not talking about content of files, those are sacred. I was  
talking about filenames. Those *for me* are not, but are for you. No  
problem, we just have different values: I want my computer to work  
for me, not me working for the computer. I'm willing to accept a file  
system or other layer that normalizes encoding of filenames if that  
makes the end-user life easier, specially in a tool distributed by  
nature.

quoted text
> An OS that silently changes the contents of your directories is  
> *crap*.
>
> Get it now?

As I said before, we disagree on file meta-data, not on file  
contents. For you, byte in must be the same byte out. For me string  
in must be the same string out.

And as I said in the previous email, what I learned today is that in  
a distributed project using git, and if you need to use accented  
characters, I need to tell all the users to use the same LANG settings.

It's important information, at least for me.

Best regards,
-- 
Pedro Melo
Blog: http://www.simplicidade.org/notes/
XMPP ID: melo@simplicidade.org
Use XMPP!


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