Files with a substructre should be directories.

On Monday 20 May 2002 10:34, Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> I wanted to use the mp3 files as an _example_ for a file with further
> structure. Should have used a better one as comment is declared as
> metadata so this was confusing, pardon.

Strange how much all this reminds me of NeXT Step; it was ahead of its 
time by more than 10 years and provided solutions to problems that we 
start to _discuss_ now.

However, the NeXT Step approach was 100% UNIX-like: A file with 
substructure was -- a directory. The directory extension .app stood for 
applications, and others existed as well. The application icon was 
stored in this directory under a special name (in TIFF format, BTW), 
and the resources for the GUI were contained in the directory as well 
as required libraries. Even from the UNIX shell promt, the substructure 
was accessible.  

For the transport, etc. of these "files", one can easily use tar, 
compress them with gzip, etc.

I really advocate for a similar solution. The strength of UNIX lies in 
the command line and in batch processing. Not for the desktop user, but 
for the servers. But rather soon, there won't be any desktops without 
servers. What p***es me off most in Windows is that there is no 
reasonable and easy way to do scripting from a command line. If we give 
up shell access to the KDE file, we loose the most important features 
of UNIX.

Greetings,

Sven.
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