Re: File types [was: Re: wide characters and i18n]

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> Having used MacOS only occasionally, I remain blissfully ignorant
>> about its quirks and resource forks are still a mystery to me.
> They're "alternate" data streams.

Well...the things in the resource fork are alternative data streams.
The resource fork as a whole is more like an alternative data stream
directory.

AIUI, that is; I have never had MacOS (of any vintage) inflicted on me,
but I've picked up bits here and there.

> For the record (and IMHO blah blah) resource forks are an outright
> bad idea: directories are _designed_ for keeping related data
> together.

> Extended attributes (or tags of some sort) make a lot more sense (or
> would, IMHO, yada yada) if they provided some sort of MIME type file
> metadata about the file, and were flexible enough to handle
> additional concepts like *BSD flags (refer chflags(2), chflags(1))
> etc.

So, tell me: besides the name, what is the difference between an
extended attribute and an entry in the resource fork?  In particular,
what makes the former good and the latter bad?

Because I'm having trouble seeing the difference.

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