Hi all, > On May 6, 2021, at 2:16 PM, André Fachat <afachat_at_gmx.de> wrote: > > Am 6. Mai 2021 22:54:24 schrieb silverdr_at_wfmh.org.pl: >> [re: directory listings, quote or do not quote filenames?] > > > [...] my take is to prefer function over form. I've probably been bitten too many times (on PCs tho) by file names with spaces and stuff that I just don't want to go without quotes. [...] I fully agree. Listings on C= 8-bitters have always included quote marks for two very good reasons: (1) so you can tell where the end of the name actually is, and (2) so you can construct a BASIC command (which will need those quote marks) on the same line, with somewhat less inconvenience than having to retype the entire filename, every single time. That said, I myself've always been seriously underwhelmed by the aesthetics of it. Commodore's 8-bit computer lines may have succeeded at being relatively legible on low-end home TV screens, but the fonts they did it with are unlikely to ever win any beauty awards! After years of putting up with columns of fat, ugly ditto marks gunking up my screen every time I looked at a directory listing, I'd have loved to experiment with other delimiters by now. Alas, stock systems couldn't understand any other syntax. Heh... Something as simple as coloured backgrounds (which are, after all, only a more flexible form of inverse text) would have worked to show exactly where the end of the name falls. Beyond that, if they'd stretched themselves a bit to let BASIC understand escape sequences in string literals, they could have eliminated both issues altogether by simply printing anything weird found embedded in a filename in escaped form. Hindsight is said to be 20/20... I think it gets even sharper after this many decades of focus! G.Received on 2021-05-07 02:00:02
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