• atx_aquarian@lemmy.world
    682·
    21 days ago

    Fun fact, though: Linux is the only case-sensitive one.

    Edit: I feel silly for forgetting that it’s all about the choice of FS. If anyone needs anything from me, I’ll be in the corner, coloring.

    • Localhorst86@feddit.org
      54·
      21 days ago

      From a technical standpoint, the windows NTFS filesystem is designed inherently case sensitive, just windows doesn’t allow creating case sensitive files.

      Connecting an NTFS drive to linux, you can create two separate files readme.txt and Readme.txt.

      Using windows, you can see both files in the filesystem, but chances are most (if not all) software will struggle accessing both files, opening readme.txt might instead open Readme.txt or vice versa.

      • pixelscript@lemm.eeEnglish
        13·
        21 days ago

        For a few years now, Windows has had the capability of marking certain directories as case-sensitive. So you can have a mixed-case-sensitivity filesystem experience now. Yeah. :/

      • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
        3·
        20 days ago

        You’re correct. I once was trying to rename a file in Windows in a git repository that had a wrong capitalization. It was tricky.

      • paperplane@lemmy.world
        12·
        21 days ago

        When case insensitivity is the default I always wonder how many apps unknowingly rely on that due to typos somewhere. I encountered this once while porting a Windows/macOS app to Linux that someone imported a module with the wrong case and nobody noticed

        • Orygin@sh.itjust.works
          3·
          19 days ago

          The source engine does not handle case sensitivity when loading assets from disk. On windows it’s not an issue but on Linux it will silently fail to load assets if the case doesn’t match. I lost so many hours trying to fix some weapon animation that had 0 seconds run time when porting a mod dedicated server to Linux.

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zipEnglish
        4·
        19 days ago

        But why? What is the point?

        That you can give 2 different files the same name? Because that would confuse the hell out of every regular user. Especially if you work on a network share and have an entire directory full of same named files because everyone and their grandma throws their files in there.

        It is almost as bad as Case Sensitive Usernames and email.

      • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
        224·
        21 days ago

        Case-insensitive filesystems are for maniacs. They are only causing trouble. Ever had two folders with the same name but different capitalization in windows? You see both, but whichever you click it will always open the same one, while the other can’t be accessed. Psychopath behavior.

        • ahornsirup@feddit.org
          4·
          21 days ago

          That’s because NTFS isn’t case-insensitive. If it was there’d be no two folders. Windows is a case-insensitive operating system running on a case-sensitive file system. It’s pretty clear Microsoft wanted case sensitivity and then realised how much legacy software that’d break.

        • MooseTheDog@lemmy.world
          51·
          20 days ago

          In my decades of IT work I have literally never seen this to be an issue. To myself or others.

      • asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world
        123·
        20 days ago

        Hard disagree. I don’t understand why anyone would want case insensitive.

        Am I the only one who doesn’t go around mindlessly capitalizing letters? Do people find it too difficult to capitalize things?

        Do you want case insensitive passwords too?

        If I type X I mean X and only X. Uppercase letters are different letters, just like X and Y are different letters.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
        91·
        21 days ago

        Makes changing the case of a file/folder a lot easier though. Windows you have to rename it to something else then rename it again just to change case but Linux you can just…rename it. It’s a small thing but it’s something

      • optional@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        19 days ago

        It’s a big difference whether a folder is named PetersHits or PeterShits. So what should I expect when opening a folder called petershits? Pictures of Peter on the potty or some great songs?

  • pelya@lemmy.world
    51·
    21 days ago

    You can actually use / as a path separator on Windows in functions like fopen(), because it supports some ancient version of POSIX standard.

    • palordrolap@fedia.io
      31·
      21 days ago

      There used to be an undocumented setting in early versions of MS-DOS that would allow the setting of the command option character to something other than the slash, and if you did that, the slash automatically became the path separator. All you needed was SWITCHAR=- in your CONFIG.SYS and DOS was suddenly very Unix-y.

      It was taken out after a while because, with the feature being undocumented, too many people didn’t know about it and bits of software - especially batch files, would have been reliant on things being “wrong”. The modern support for regular slash in API calls probably doesn’t use any of the old SWITCHAR code, but it is, in some way, the spiritual descendant of that secret feature.

      Here’s an old blog that talks about it: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/archive/blogs/larryosterman/why-is-the-dos-path-character

    • marcos@lemmy.world
      12·
      21 days ago

      The one thing about NT was that it didn’t have it’s own semantics, but it could emulate any system you wanted. It’s the unofficial successor of an OS that was based on creating VMs where you could run any other OS you want.

      Then Microsoft decided to create their own system in it, and only really finished writing that one.

    • SatyrSack@feddit.orgEnglish
      27·
      21 days ago

      And BSD. It’s really just Windows vs. literally everything. Or is there anything else that uses backslashes?

    • mercano@lemmy.world
      9·
      21 days ago

      Only Mac OS 10 and later, based on BSD, uses ‘/‘. (And, I guess, A/UX.) Classic MacOS used a ‘:’, but it wasn’t regularly exposed in the UI. The only way most users would know is that the colon couldn’t be used in a file name.

      • horse@feddit.org
        2·
        21 days ago

        I might be wrong, but I think you still can’t use a ‘:’ in a filename in macOS. If I recall correctly it will let you do it and show it in Finder, but actually replace it with a ‘-’.

    • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
      10·
      21 days ago

      What is this “real” concept anyway?

      Adam Savage famously stated on Mythbusters “I reject your reality and substitute my own”

      Sure, but is reality even real then? Is anything real?

      Not that I meant to get all pop-philosophical on this beautiful Sunday morning, sorry about that.

      • GhostedIC@sh.itjust.works
        41·
        20 days ago

        I, too, first heard this quote from Adam on Mythbusters as a child. But, I’m pretty sure I also heard it was said first by some philosopher.

        I would later be informed that “some philosopher” was the 1984 film The Dungeon Master.

        Only apparently that was not the first, and it was said in a 1974 episode of Doctor Who. Well, someone on Reddit said that, and linked to this WikiQuote page but on that page it also says it’s from The Dungeon master.

        So, I don’t know what to believe any more, and I still hope it was actually an obscure lost quote of Rene Magritte or something because in my head it would just make sense.

      • OrteilGenou@lemmy.world
        1·
        20 days ago

        Yes

        Interpretation of reality is individual

        Reality itself is relative

        But if it didn’t exist we wouldn’t be chatting about it right now

        That’s my reality anyway

        What’s yours?

  • umbraroze@lemmy.world
    202·
    21 days ago

    I don’t really watch Star Wars. I’m a more of a Trekkie gal.

    🖖

    See, you can separate files both ways as long as it’s logical

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
      62·
      21 days ago

      Linux uses forward slash. Windows uses backslash. Because some dude 45 years ago wanted to make it look different from UNIX.

        • PNW_Doug@lemmy.world
          15·
          21 days ago

          They did! And I weirdly kind of miss them for the entirely non-logical reason that they looked elegant.

          Don’t get me wrong, I adapted in about 3 seconds when I made the switch to Mac OS X 25 years ago, but I irrationally kinda miss them just a tiny bit.

        • __nobodynowhere@startrek.websiteEnglish
          17·
          21 days ago

          DOS originally didn’t even support directories but was using / for command line arguments. They didn’t want to change the option character and break stuff so they went with \ as the directory separator.

          DOS wasn’t originally created by Microsoft. They bought the OS from computer shop in Seattle.

  • Adalast@lemmy.world
    7·
    19 days ago

    Ohhhhh… I fucking hate this. I use Windows locally, but I do support for a render farm that runs on Linux. The number of times I have recieved “it works locally” tickets from an artist who decided to get clever and embed Windows paths in string literals in their scene makes me want to punch a puppy. They don’t even look at the application logs we provide to see that the paths threw errors. We handle repointing their file paths with symlinks normally, but when they use literals it literally fucks the system with escapes. I will never understand why Microsoft refuses to standardize to POSIX with the rest of the world. Aside from them being a US company with decision makers who still think freedom units make sense.

  • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
    4·
    19 days ago

    When you migrate the filesystem from a windows to Linux installation and hours later you can’t find anything

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    41·
    20 days ago

    The number of times I had to ask “how can I tell where the file ‘physically’” (I know) “lives” on the network when I took up work at a Windows shop, it was just baffling. And Win people couldn’t understand what I was asking.

    There’s a location for this effing thing. I want to know where it is, really! How do I get that info?!

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      19 days ago

      It’s not Win people. It is dumb people.

      Any Infrastructure IT guy can tell you where specific files are stored, it is their job. Whether they mainly use Windows, Mac or Linux doesn’t matter.