[geeks] Weird MacOS issue

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Dec 24, 2008, at 11:25 , Phil Stracchino wrote:

> Phil Stracchino wrote:
>> That's entirely iTunes' fault.  There is by this time *NO FUCKING  
>> EXCUSE
>> WHATSOEVER* (pardon my French) for any modern application  
>> whatsoever to
>> be case-insensitive on a case-sensitive filesystem.

That depends.

Does iTunes have a way of knowing the filesystem is case sensitive?

Even if it does, I know from experience there is no perfect way to  
resolve:

README.txt
readme.TXT
README.TXT
ReadMe.txt

...and so on.  No matter what heuristic you use, someone will hate it  
or it will break something.

Case insensitive filesystems actually solve most of the issues in such  
situations.

There are good arguments for either position, but since humans tend to  
care about case sensitivity only in their data and not their metadata,  
I'm not sure a case sensitive filesystem is the best way to go.  I'm a  
geek and for years have preferred it, but the other 99% of humanity  
seems to not like it.

I care very much about formality in what I've written and so on.

But do I really need the massive namespace clashing that case  
sensitive filesystems allow, along with the unsolvable problems they  
can present?

I'm not completely decided yet, but the argument for not having case  
sensitive metadata is compelling.

Data is another story: it's really up to standards and applications to  
determine what to do there.

But the metadata that helps us find out data... it's so universally  
used, I think it's ultimately easier if apps don't have to worry about  
case.

NOTE: I feel completely free to change my mind next week... :)


-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com