Comment by jeffwask
4 years ago
It doesn't even have to be complex, often basic automation tasks fail with spaces and special characters. Honestly, treating a file system like a natural language processor is a bad idea. Besides at this point with how digital we have all become who can't understand...
thisismyconfig.txt vs this is my config.txt or this_is_my_config.txt
...i've forced myself to stop using spaces, character, and even cap. They are all constructs that provide minimal value for the extra complexity.
> thisismyconfig.txt vs this is my config.txt or this_is_my_config.txt
Just wondering, what is the readability of this for people who are dyslexic?
I'm not sure, but my gut instinct is that it wouldn't help. Dyslexia rates are much lower in China, so if I suppose we could start naming files with Chinese characters (on systems that support Unicode). It would take a bit to get used to, but eventually we'd develop a pidgin language for when we talk about software, much like how if you overhear Chinese or Vietnamese developers they will mix in English words like "linked list" into their sentences, because there's not a more natural sounding alternative.
Switching to Chinese would also help eliminate the spaces issue.
tbh I'm not dyslexic and realized the spaces make it really difficult to know what the filename actually is. If you just take the second example, how would you know if the file was "this is my config.txt" versus "config.txt"?
Aside from parsing errors it just seems to lend itself to ambiguity.
This. People are saying spaces improve ergonomics. Unless everyone always quotes their paths in documentation, emails, etc -- which they won't -- I say it actually reduces readability.
Also programs automatically that turn paths into links don't work with spaces.
Or in my case, people for whom English is a second language, or have low education levels.
Saying, "who can't understand..." is arrogant, selfish, and an example of why normal people hate people in the SV echo chamber.
cestmaconfig.txt vs cest ma config.txt vs cest_ma_config.txt
It's the same in any language.
Hugs who hurt you.
I'm also pretty sure most of us in any language use Slack, SMS or other forms of communication where text isn't necessarily presented in a grammatical correct manner and we all figure out what the person is saying.
> Saying, "who can't understand..." is arrogant, selfish, and an example of why normal people hate people in the SV echo chamber
Exactly how I feel every time Economics is brought up on HN.
SV echo chamber is on your side here - it is very in vogue to denounce anglocentrism. they were defending hieroglyphs and emoji in variable names in that thread about invisible javascript backdoor a day or two ago if you'd like a recent example
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I'm similar, but I would like to support labels intended for humans, along with various translations, as metadata on top of e.g. filesystem path components.
You nailed it - getting rid of spaces and dashes and underscores is extremely human-hostile. People added spaces to the English language for a reason, and that's because they make it way easier to read.
Your system is only intended for other programs to interact with? Go nuts, make hex UUIDs. Actual people are supposed to use it? You need separator characters.
I also don't see how those characters add "extra complexity" unless you're doing dumb things like text processing on paths and filenames (as opposed to using OS/library functions that handle paths correctly) - in which case, there's your problem.
Why stop there. A computer works more efficiently with numbers rather than strings, so let’s just give each file a number instead of a string. Besides, at this point with how digital we have all become who can’t understand… But wait, that already exists and is called an inode.
A file system has a human interface and a computer interface. Don’t mix them. Let users give file names in whichever way they please.
> treating a file system like a natural language processor is a bad idea
could you please explain what you mean by that?