From: Gennady <gfb@...>
Date: 2004-06-12T03:17:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Switch to .ruby extension?

Tyler Zesiger wrote:
> 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 

Go back to windows ;-)

More seriously, In Unix you spend almost all your time at the command 
prompt, so it would "infuriate" me if I had to type at least twice as 
much all the day if commands were called as you suggest. As for 
newcomers, short command names is the least problem they would encounter 
if they switch from Windows (for completely fresh people it does not 
matter what command set to learn anyway).

On the other hand, you have a lot of means to alias any command in any 
Unix shell.

> 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.
>>
>>
>>
> 
>