100% Linux - Is it possible?

[James Wilkinson]

Giulio Sorrentino wrote:
> Never change estension of a file.
> This happened only because word can manage html...

Why not?

Unix, by and large, doesn't use file extensions enough to matter.
Windows is sufficiently set in its ways that it occasionally needs
different extensions in order for something to work.

OK, it makes no sense to rename (say) a .png to an .mp3. But it's often
necessary to change extensions to get Windows or Windows programs (or a
few programs for Unix) to look at a file in a different way: the way
*you* want.

Other examples include changing honest .html and .jpeg extensions so a
program with a mind-set stuck in the seventies can cope. Or changing a
.txt file into a .bat so Windows will run the thing.

"Never change extension" is effectively the assumption that the computer
knows better than you do.

"To design the perfect anti-Unix, write an operating system that thinks
it knows what you're doing better than you do. And then adds injury to
insult by getting it wrong." -- Eric Raymond, "The Art of Unix
Programming".

But, unfortunately, while there are Windows programs out there that
produce or read files, someone will want them to interoperate with
Linux.

James.

-- 
James Wilkinson       | The end result of 1000 years of ransacking other
Exeter    Devon    UK | people's language and grammar is a language of almost
E-mail address: james | infinite flexibility. Why - we can even understand the
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | Americans!   -- Phil Launchbury