[gopher] Re: Item Type Suggestions
The idea of File Extensions predates Microsoft by many years. It was used under CPM in the 1970's, and probably on other systems earlier than that? Lack of file extensions is nothing but lazyness on the part of UNIX users.
Regardless of whether a computer system can interperate a file type or not, HUMANS CANNOT. If you have ever used a BBS, then you know how important it is for the Human Operator to determine what kind of file he is dealing with. The best way to do this is with a standardized set of file extensions.
This is why pure ascii text files sometimes have the extension DIZ, even though they are exactly interchangeable with TXT files (and treated the same way by the computer). Its for the HUMANS.
As humans are the ones who create files (via their computer machines), humans are the ones who should designate what kind of file extension a file should have. Therefore, letting their machines (computers) act purely on the file extension is a legitimate, and VERY USEFUL, way for humans (and by proxy their computer machines) to designate what software should be tasked to open a file.
--- On Tue, 7/8/08, Avery M. <averym@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Avery M. <averym@gmail.com>
Subject: [gopher] Re: Item Type Suggestions
To: gopher@complete.org
Date: Tuesday, July 8, 2008, 4:34 PM
The GIF and image types are necessary because they tell the browser
that an image can be displayed in an image viewer (e.g. within a
graphical browser) and doesn't needed to be passed to another kind of
handler. Filetype sniffing is IE's mark of the beast which should
absolutely not be allowed to contaminate any other protocol.
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 4:24 PM, JumpJet Mailbox <jumpjetinfo@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Agreed. Keep types "0" to "9" and "i" only
(throwing most everything under type 9, including text files with extra control
code suff such as DOC and RTF, even though they CAN be read in a text reader...
try it yourself), and depreciate all other types (including "h" -
html, "g" - gif, and "I" - image)!!!
>
> Is this Item Type system favorable to everyone? If so, I will reconfigure
my server now.
> --- On Tue, 7/8/08, Mate Nagy <k-zed@hactar.net> wrote:
>
> From: Mate Nagy <k-zed@hactar.net>
> Subject: [gopher] Re: Item Type Suggestions
> To: gopher@complete.org
> Date: Tuesday, July 8, 2008, 10:35 AM
>
> On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 08:27:28AM -0600, Jay Nemrow wrote:
>> I am really against anything besides true text files being classified
> under
>> 0. Neither DOC nor RTF files are text files and would break all
existing
>> gopher clients.
> fully agree
>> I much prefer putting almost everything under 9, just because older
>> clients will do something that is very acceptable - it will download
>> and store the file as a binary, which any viewer an handle.
> also fully agree.
> Binary files (doc, mp3, rtf, what have you) are binary files. Let the
> user handle them. IMHO, even building in movie playing support or any
> other sophisticated file type discovery into a gopher client is
> overdoing it (except for image types, which is often handled by image
> loading libs).
> Let's keep the ease of implementation of clients in mind (that's
one
> (or *the*) massive advantage of the gopher protocol).
>
> Mate
>
>
>
>
>
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