DefederateLemmyMl @ SpaceCadet @feddit.nl

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2 yr. ago

Because it’s designed for average people

It is not. It is designed for all purposes, automated processes and people alike. A filesystem is not just for grandma's Word documents.

And even people's names are case sensitive. My name has the format Aaa Bbb ccc Ddd. It is not the same as the person with the name Aaa Bbb Ccc Ddd, who also exists. So why shouldn't file names be?

I don’t think there’s a need for File.txt and fILE.txt

It's not so much about that need. It's about it being programmatically correct. f and F are not the same ASCII or UTF-8 character, so why would a file system treat them the same?

Having a direct char type to filename mapping, without unnecessary hocus pocus in between, is the simple and elegant solution.

Even more annoying is that it's very cumbersome to change the case of a file once you've created it.

If you accidentally create fIle.txt when you meant File.txt, the rename function does nothing ... and it will keep displaying as fIle.txt. You have to rename it to something else entirely, then rename it back to the original name with the intended case.

This isn't "Windows design"... this is just inherited stone age bullshit from the DOS days when the filesystem was FAT16 and all file names were uppercase 8.3.

NTFS is case sensitive in its underlying design, but was made case insensitive by default, yet case preserving, for reasons of backwards compatibility.

If Microsoft has to design something from scratch, without the need for backwards compatibility, they go for case sensitive themselves. For example: Azure Blob Storage has case sensitive file names.

Language is simply the intrafrastructure by which we touch another’s mind across space and time

And grammar is the tool we use to structure our thoughts into intelligible phrases, so that our words convey the correct meaning to our audience. Sure everyone makes grammar mistakes occasionally, but if you respect your audience, you should at least attempt to use proper grammar and graciously accept it as a learning opportunity when a mistake is pointed out.

a bash script to reinstall f—ing everything again

Why would you ever want to do that?

First of all, almost any Arch update induced problem can be solved by downgrading the offending package to the previous version, which handily is available in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/. This is an essential Arch troubleshooting skill.

Even an unbootable system (which has only happened once in my 10 years of using Arch because I didn't read important news) can be fixed this way, because you can always boot from the installation usb stick and then use arch-chroot to access your installation and fix problems.

Secondly, if the problem was indeed caused by an Arch update, you will just reinstall the problem if you run a reinstall script.

If your average Windows user calls tech support, they’ll get a simple answer

They'll get a simple answer alright. In fact, they'll be lucky if they get any answer at all that is not reboot, retry, reinstall or some other cargo cult nonsense from some on-paper "MCSA" in a third world country.

And sorry for going on a rant here, but Windows tech support forums are truly the shit tier of all tech support forums, because very few people actually have the skill to properly diagnose problems in Windows when something outside of the realm of expected behavior occurs. It's all learned behaviorisms instead of understanding: reinstall your drivers! defrag your hard drive! run ipconfig /renew! clean your cache folder! delete your cookies! Never: "look in the system eventlog for an error event coming from this source, and tell me what the error code says"

What is the problem with "jargon" anyway? You can't discuss technical things without using technical language.

If you take a bunch of Windows nerds (yes they exist), and get them talking about group policies and registry edits and powershell cmdlets, you get the same thing.

But people whose life or personality doesn’t revolve around their computer should also be protected from user hostile and privacy invading practices.

people not knowing shit about tech is not their fault

I don't agree with much else of what you are saying, but you are quite right here. We should indeed not throw people under the bus because they're not tech savvy and only know how to use Windows. They need to be defended from all those horrible anti-human and privacy invading practices by Microsoft and other Big Tech companies as well, and we should keep fighting and pushing back on those companies pushing their anti-human features, regardless of whether an alternative exists.

BUT, ultimately Linux is the answer, and people are not wrong for pointing that out. It's the only viable alternative that is user respecting by design. It's the only way to free yourself from the abusive relationship between you and Microsoft, because much like an abusive partner, Microsoft will never change. So if you're tech savvy, and you would be able to switch to Linux but for some reason you don't, I have little sympathy for your Windows problems.

Ah crap, was replying on an old tab that I hadn’t refreshed.

Ah crap, was replying on an old tab that I hadn't refreshed.

It was much easier to “hide” sit back then unless you were in the know in the industry.

It wasn't hidden. Everybody knew back in the day what an evil piece of shit he was.

It has just been forgotten about and many current adults weren't old enough, or even around, in the heyday of his evil empire, so he has been able to whitewash his image. My 50 year old ass remembers though. Fuck Bill Gates.

Take a breath dude

Can you not please with the condescending language? Maybe you're the one who should take a breath and read my post calmly. Anyway, the guy above me asked, I gave an answer to cover all the bases.

The default branch name of git isn't that important to me either, I'll manage with main or master. But at the same time it does irk me especially since this kind of language policing has become an industry wide trend, and it's just a stupid thing done for stupid reasons. Am I still allowed to express why I find it stupid?

it’s trivial to change

It isn't as trivial as you make it out. I've already encountered repos where there was both a main and a master branch, both with different commits, because some developer got confused, and it was a nice mess to untangle. But hey, let's change some more stuff around for no good reason.

If there’s any chance it helps maintain a hostile workplace/industry

I can think of a lot of things that contribute to a hostile workplace, but the default branch name of git? Seriously? Even the people who pushed for this don't actually believe that themselves.

Why care about Master at all?

I've already explained all my reasons, but I'll reiterate. To summarize I basically have five main issues with it

1. The change was done in response to attempts at language policing and bullying by a vocal and militant minority. Giving into it is a form of appeasement towards an unreasonable demand.
2. The change retroactively modifies a terminology that was already agreed upon. Like, if git sprung into existence today, not many people would have an issue with it if they would call it main or trunk or primary from the get go. But that's not what happened. Git was released in 2005 and it used master terminology. As a consequence, many existing repositories also use master. Now when someone is working with branches, like doing merges or pull requests, they suddenly have to remember: oh in this repository it is main, but in that repository it is still master. Or they have go out of their way to modify decade old repositories, potentially breaking all kinds of behind the scenes CICD stuff. Or they have to go out of their way to revert the default on all systems that they're working on back to master. In any case, this change is a source of errors and wasted effort for zero net good.
3. It does no good in the real world other than making do-gooders feel good about themselves, and giving a capitalist entity some PR to appear more progressive than they are. We all still have masters, existing slaves are not freed, no historical wrongs of slavery or inequality are righted.
4. It's a misguided change in this case because the word master in this context doesn't even have a relationship to slavery. Just like a master degree you may hold, or a master key or a master recording of your favorite album have no bearing on slavery. Note that there are no "slave" branches in git.
5. Finally, in the case of git, master is simply more accurate than main because it carries a nuance (derivativeness) that main does not.