Syncopator
Registered
This question may be technically OT (and I'm not really a Unix or X11 guy), but I figured this might be the best place to ask this question:
Can anybody tell me why people insist on using the "_" character in file names? Tons of people -- from software developers to the average guy who takes vacation photos -- seem to believe that they must avoid using the space character, resulting in tons and tons of ugly file names.
Why take the trouble to type "My_Grand_Canyon_Vaction.jpg" -- which is (a) more difficult to type, (b) looks ugly, and most importantly (c) wraps incorrectly on the desktop -- when "My Grand Canyon Vaction.jpg" would do just fine?! The same goes for PDFs, disk images, and the like. (See attached screen shot.)
Is there some legit reason for doing this -- like some (past or present) Windows limitation on using spaces? A friend says it might be a holdover from the days of DOS, which didn't allow spaces in file names. Is he correct, or is there some other reason? Then again, Macs have *never* prohibited spaces, yet many of the files I'm talking about come from Mac developers! So why would a Mac developer ever need to name Mac files in such a way?
Bottom line: In 2006, is there any legit reason to avoid spaces in file names, or is this practice basically a technological "superstition" that has no real basis? No doubt there's nothing that can really be done about it, but if anyone has any info, I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks.
Can anybody tell me why people insist on using the "_" character in file names? Tons of people -- from software developers to the average guy who takes vacation photos -- seem to believe that they must avoid using the space character, resulting in tons and tons of ugly file names.
Why take the trouble to type "My_Grand_Canyon_Vaction.jpg" -- which is (a) more difficult to type, (b) looks ugly, and most importantly (c) wraps incorrectly on the desktop -- when "My Grand Canyon Vaction.jpg" would do just fine?! The same goes for PDFs, disk images, and the like. (See attached screen shot.)
Is there some legit reason for doing this -- like some (past or present) Windows limitation on using spaces? A friend says it might be a holdover from the days of DOS, which didn't allow spaces in file names. Is he correct, or is there some other reason? Then again, Macs have *never* prohibited spaces, yet many of the files I'm talking about come from Mac developers! So why would a Mac developer ever need to name Mac files in such a way?
Bottom line: In 2006, is there any legit reason to avoid spaces in file names, or is this practice basically a technological "superstition" that has no real basis? No doubt there's nothing that can really be done about it, but if anyone has any info, I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks.