From: Tyler Zesiger <mailing-lists@...>
Date: 2004-06-12T02:55:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Switch to .ruby extension?

The obsessive levels of abbreviation in the *nix world infuriate me. 
Especially when it's so easy to make verbose and abbreviated commands 
exist together, and do the same thing.

I remember when I first started using linux (now I use FreeBSD, which is 
no better in this regard), I spent an hour trying to figure out how to 
copy a file..."copy" didn't work. Searching the internet for info on 
"copying" didn't turn up anything, probably because Google wasn't what 
it is now, back then. I had to finally get on IRC and ask someone how to 
copy - Turns out it's "cp". It will take me a decade of typing "cp", 
with it's two fewer letters than "copy", to earn back the hour it took 
me to figure out the command in the first place.

When I mention to *nix people how easy it would be to make "copy" work 
simultaneously along with "cp" for the sake of user-friendliness, I'm 
met with scorn and rage, and cat-calls saying "go back to windows". It 
seems that most *nix people have no interest in other people, even to 
the small extent of making things accessible for newcomers to their 
favorite tools. That's what I call an antisocial failure to communicate.

Ruby ought to have a either a .ruby extension, or no extension at all, 
as someone else mentioned in this thread. I'm sure lots of anti-social 
types find their meaning in life by insulting the intelligence of people 
who can't figure out what ".rb" means, but I'm not one of them. I 
wholeheartedly agree with you, that abbreviations are ancient relics of 
an elitist and anti-social past, and they should be buried with the 
creaky old coots that invented them.


Karl von Laudermann wrote:

> The current convention for Ruby source file names is to end them with
> a .rb extension. This strikes me as too minimalistic. Why not .ruby?
> 
> File extensions of more than three characters are very commonplace,
> now that Windows supports them. HTML files generally have a .html
> extension; you very rarely see .htm anymore. And Java source and
> object files have .java and .class extensions, respectively. "ruby" is
> only two more letters than "rb", but I think it's clearer and more
> aesthetically pleasing.
> 
> So, I propose a change in the convention from .rb to .ruby. Now, I'm
> not suggesting that everyone change all of their existing scripts and
> libraries, or even the files in the Ruby distribution. That would be
> excessive for such a small thing. But, for example, the Windows
> installer could associate both .rb and .ruby files with ruby.exe, and
> we could start using .ruby in new projects.
> 
> Yes it's a silly little thing. But ever since Y2K, I've been wary of
> excessive abbreviation. :-) Besides, it's the attention to the little
> things that makes Ruby so appealing.
> 
> 
>