From Newsgroup: alt.english.usage

On 8/18/2026 5:57 AM, anthk@not.dev.null wrote:

Under ITS I think they were just separated by a space

The "dot separator" is just the full-stop
symbol in english language, or the decimal
point in mathematics.

Of course, you can use symbols or punctuation
marks differently. There are no laws to forbid
that.

Don't mystify nor glorify computer technology!
It's still english language after all.

Of course, some daemons do NOT wanna see
certain sacred or holy symbols in various
languages. They will rename, redirect,
shift, swap, invert, twist, turn, ...

I don't wanna go off-topic nor cross-topic.
Well... Meow.... ;)


Full stop - Wikipedia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_stop>

Punctuation - Wikipedia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation>
--

@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
The game is afoot... Meow...
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From Newsgroup: alt.english.usage

On 2026-08-23 08:13, Mr. Chang Man-wai wrote:

On 8/18/2026 5:57 AM, anthk@not.dev.null wrote:

Under ITS I think they were just separated by a space

The "dot separator" is just the full-stop
symbol in english language, or the decimal
point in mathematics.

In Unix/Linux filesystems, that is so. But before that became
ubiquitous, the parts of the filesystem were separate fixed-length
fields in the file directory entries, and the separators were not in the
file directory, but were added as syntactic sweeteners in the command
language and the display routines.
--
Lars Poulsen - an old geek in Santa Barbara, California
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From Newsgroup: alt.english.usage

On 8/24/2026 2:20 AM, Lars Poulsen wrote:

In Unix/Linux filesystems, that is so. But before that became
ubiquitous, the parts of the filesystem were separate fixed-length
fields in the file directory entries, and the separators were not in the
file directory, but were added as syntactic sweeteners in the command language and the display routines.

In typical letters management (talking about
physical letters, paper ones), how would you
assign a name to a letter? Is there a file
extension kind of thing?
--

@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
The game is afoot... Meow...
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From Newsgroup: alt.english.usage

John Levine scribbled something on Tuesday the 8/25/2026:

According to Mr. Chang Man-wai <toylet.toylet@gmail.com>:

(crossposting put on a diet)

But in the naming method,
which is the file name?
Which is the file name extension? :)

By convention, a computer filename is the whole string identifying the
file, but can also be used to describe the substring that is everything
up to the extension (and its separator). The extension is everything
after the last separator. In MSDOS days ... and other simple file
systems, like the CP/M ancestor of FAT ... the extension was the 3
characters that fit into the directory entry structure field labeled "extension".

I think the question doesn't make sense. The reason computer files have extensions is to describe the format of the contents: text, executables, spreadsheet, whatever. That makes it a lot easier to select the appropriate software to process them. Microsoft famously got this wrong, by looking at the contents of the file to decide how to process it instead of the name, so you can have a mail attachment called CONTRACT.TXT which is in fact an executable full of malware.

I don't think this is what Microsoft did. Unix is the OS that uses
"magic" (special bytes at offset 0) to decode what a file is ... you
can specify which shell is to execute a script, for instance. (Linux
has also adpted this technique.)

Microsoft is famous for trying to open a binary file in a text editor
because it has a .txt extension.

In paper files, it's generally obvious what kind of material is in the folder, or if it's not, it doesn't matter since there's only one way to process it, pull out the file and look at it.

There are plenty of situations where a librarian is dependent on a
subject matter expert to identify what a book or paper file is. And
they may need help to identiify which expert is needed.

/dps
--
Trust, but verify.
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From Newsgroup: alt.english.usage

On 26/08/2026 2:22 AM, Snidely wrote:

John Levine-a scribbled something on Tuesday the 8/25/2026:

According to Mr. Chang Man-wai <toylet.toylet@gmail.com>:

(crossposting put on a diet)

But in the naming method,
which is the file name?
Which is the file name extension? :)

By convention, a computer filename is the whole string identifying the
file, but can also be used to describe the substring that is everything
up to the extension (and its separator).-a The extension is everything
after the last separator.-a In MSDOS days ... and other simple file systems,-a like the CP/M ancestor of FAT ... the extension was the 3 characters that fit into the directory entry structure field labeled "extension".

I think the question doesn't make sense. The reason computer files have
extensions is to describe the format of the contents: text, executables,
spreadsheet, whatever. That makes it a lot easier to select the
appropriate
software to process them. Microsoft famously got this wrong, by
looking at the contents of the file to decide how to process it
instead of the name, so you can have a mail attachment called
CONTRACT.TXT which is in fact an executable full of malware.

I don't think this is what Microsoft did.-a Unix is the OS that uses
"magic" (special bytes at offset 0) to decode what a file is ... you can specify which shell is to execute a script, for instance.-a (Linux has
also adpted this technique.)

Microsoft also did this in MS-DOS. It's also a little know feature,
that you can name your executables as .com or .exe and the operating
system does not care. This /tradition/ has held up until at least
ten windows, where you can rename your .exe files as .com files and
they just continue to work as expected. I also expect the eleven
window version of recent Microsoft operating systems to honor this
tradition.

Microsoft is famous for trying to open a binary file in a text editor because it has a .txt extension.

In paper files, it's generally obvious what kind of material is in the
folder, or if it's not, it doesn't matter since there's only one way to
process it, pull out the file and look at it.

There are plenty of situations where a librarian is dependent on a
subject matter expert to identify what a book or paper file is.-a And
they may need help to identiify which expert is needed.

/dps

Do you happen to know which subject matter expert knows the origin of
the .text name for code segments in object libraries? I asked this
question a few years ago, here in alt.folklore.computers, but the veri-
table origin stumped everyone. I believe the oldest example was given
by our very own Lynn, who referenced some punch card object format from
I.B.M. in the early-to-mid 60s.

/Why/ it was named TXT did not include.

I have since gotten the hint in some book or other this is a /loader
term/, but where loaders got this notion of /text/ for the unchangable
binary code, I still do not know. Nor have I gotten around to read all
of extant 40s to early 60s literature, to see if it's ever mentioned by happenstance.

So, if you do happen to know this subject matter expert, please invite
him or her to alt.folklore.computers, so we can renew this discusssion.


Thank you for coming to my TED talk in alt.folklore.computers!
--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;
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