09-04-2024, 06:29 PM | #1 |
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Why was the period chosen for the separator character?
Out of curiosity, why is the period the separator character for hierarchical columns? I would expect either back or forward-slash.
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09-04-2024, 06:34 PM | #2 |
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slashes mean FOLDER on many OS
IIRC it was only 8.3 (DOS) file naming that only allowed 1 period. + means concatenation, so that was out |
09-04-2024, 06:36 PM | #3 |
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Considering that a) the folder structure is meant as a black box and b) most (or all) punctuation gets normalized to _ anyways, not sure how that would factor in?
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09-04-2024, 06:45 PM | #4 | |
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Quote:
I am not sure if it was Charles or Kovid that came up with the dot |
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09-04-2024, 07:47 PM | #5 |
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Just a guess: periods are used in a lot of programming languages (including Python) to indicate properties and methods of objects, which can themselves be objects, allowing nested objects of any number of levels. As a programmer, I find a period-separated hierarchy feels natural. No doubt Kovid does too.
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09-04-2024, 09:10 PM | #6 |
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Dots are less intrusive than Slashes and Sloshes
ALGEBRA.ARCADIA, Algebra.Arcadia vALGEBRA/ARCADIA, ALGEBRA\ARCADIA, Algebra/Arcadia, Algebra\Arcadia
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09-04-2024, 09:28 PM | #7 |
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Many excellent reasons have been posted, for me it was that slashes exist in tags already for example, SciFi/Fantasy is a common tag. Periods are less common in tags from general metadata sources.
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