Perhaps this is just a UK/US grammar difference. I'll change it to be:
"The de facto .html standard that *was* in place ...".
And they would have served them from boxes which could support .html,
and should have been exposed already to the de facto .html standard. So
why didn't they follow it?
You don't have to speak fluent unix. I certainly don't (and in fact
every time I think I ought to learn more than I know now, after five
minutes I want to throw the computer out of the window). As I keep
saying, the servers (unix or otherwise) would have been capable of
supporting arbitrary extensions. No bar there, then, to following the de
facto standard already in place.
Well, I'll concede one point. The 3 character extension can be traced
back to Windows programmers, or more precisely programmers confined to
FAT systems.
Looking back both sides of the isle needed major modification to keep up
with a rapidly evolving technology (FAT's naming and addressing
limitations, and Unix's inode related thrashing), though one was more
readily apparent.
I would suggest that naming is a convention, not a standard as I don't
think many FAT system users would seek out or follow a "standard" that
starts from the position "first of all, you using the wrong system."
(since FAT systems were incapable 4 character file extensions).
I would also suggest that much of the ensuing contention was more of an
adolescent "mine's bigger than yours", than anything else. Much like
the endless discourse between Apple and PC fanatics.
I have on more than one occasion, purchased software such as editors
that had obvious faulty assumption errors, and wouldn't have passed a
techno-purist's inspection, but overall performed the work I needed
done. They may have adhered to 8.3, or at least the .3 part, long after
the restriction was eliminated, but were otherwise intuitive, efficient,
and functional. I wasn't spending the money to promote some computer
religion. I was spending it to satisfy a need. Voltaire may have
captured it when he said "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
As for Consistency for the users, there is more than one user community.
There is an end user community who is presented with typing
www.example.com, and is served a document they may never know the name
of, or presented with <A
HREF="
www.example.com\documents\everything_you_ever_needed_to_know.html">info</A>
and still doesn't know the file name.
Another user community is the web developer who is responsible for the
<A
HREF="
www.example.com\documents\everything_you_ever_needed_to_know.html"> part
of things. Is it "consistent" to have to create source documents using
3 char extensions; Test them for broken links; upload them to the
server; and then rename, re-edit, and retest everything once it's on the
server? Not in my shop. Especially since it didn't matter to the
production servers or to the end users. Should I waste valuable time
and resources, possibly injecting errors, to satisfy some *nix purist?
I followed "standards", but they were domain specific, i.e. specific to
my shop, and they didn't violate anything but someone else's preference.
In fact I still adhere to three character extensions because I know
that after all this time I am more likely to create typing errors if I
attempt to change (I've already confessed to being ancient). What does
it cost me? The possible derision of some *nix zealot. I think I can
live with that.
I have heard it said that for most people, history began the day they
were born and they see everything in that context. I'm sure a similar
aphorism can be made about operating systems.
Have a pleasant weekend my friend.
