this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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Programmer Humor

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[–] Hupf@feddit.org 101 points 3 months ago
[–] moseschrute@lemmy.world 78 points 3 months ago (9 children)

…and whoever decided a file system should be case insensitive by default, I hate you.

[–] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago (5 children)

What's the use case for case sensitive file names

[–] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 3 months ago

Because I want to?

[–] Takumidesh@lemmy.world 68 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Well an uppercase ASCII char is a different char than its lowercase counterpart. I would argue that not differentiating between them is an arbitrary rule that doesn't make any sense, and in many cases, is more computationally difficult as it involves more comparisons and string manipulations (converting everything to lower case).

And the result is that you ultimately get files with visually distinct names, that aren't actually treated as distinct, and so there is a disconnect from how we process information and how the computer is doing it.

'A' != 'a', they are just as unequal as 'a' and 'b'

Edit: I would say the use case is exactly the same as programming case sensitivity, characters have meaning and capitalizing them has intent. Casing strategies are immensely prevalent in programming and carry a lot of weight for identifying programmers' intent (properties vs backing fields as an example) similar intent can be shown with file names.

[–] Kissaki@programming.dev 6 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Case insensitive handling protects end-users from doing "bad" things and confusion.

[–] Rednax@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

Simple solution: only allow lower case characters in file names.

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[–] Kissaki@programming.dev 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

is exactly the same as programming case sensitivity

Me working on a case insensitive DB collation 🤡🚀🐱‍🏍

[–] gazter@aussie.zone -2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

If I have four files, a.txt, A.txt, b.txt, and B.txt, in what order do they appear when I sort alphabetically?

edit: I don't understand why this was downvoted?

[–] Speiser0@feddit.org 9 points 3 months ago

Might depend on your file browser.

You may also want to try, for example, the files "a1", "a2", "a3", and "a10". Lexicographically, "a2">"a10", but my file browser displays "a10" after "a2".

[–] Wildly_Utilize@infosec.pub 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] Kissaki@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Why would you order lowercase before uppercase?

[–] gazter@aussie.zone 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ascending order implies going from low to high

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[–] pankkake@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

A computer will spit out A, B, a, b

See also: ASCII chart

[–] gazter@aussie.zone 7 points 3 months ago (8 children)

So if someone tells me to look for a file amongst a long list, I need to look in two different areas- the uppercase and lowercase areas.

I get why it's more technically correct to differentiate, but from the perspective of a human user, it's a pain in the ass.

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[–] Speiser0@feddit.org 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Think the other way around: What's the use case for case insensitive file names? Does it justify the effort and complexity for the filesystem and the programs to know the difference between lower and upper space chars?

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

What’s the use case for case insensitive file names?

Human comprehension.

Readme, readme, README, and ReadMe are not meaningfully different to the average user.

And for dorks like us - oh my god, tab completion, you know I mean Documents, just take the fucking d!

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[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago
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[–] burgermeister@lemm.ee 63 points 3 months ago

Every fucking folder in the file share has one of these

[–] Natanael@lemmy.zip 62 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I saw somebody with Nintendo .DS_store as a username

[–] amon@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)
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[–] Cargon@lemmy.ml 50 points 3 months ago

Found one of these in the firmware zip file of my soundbar today.

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