Re: Case Insensitive File Systems -- Torvalds Hates Them

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

On 2025-05-08, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
 

If someone wants to complain about "X allowed newlines" they likely
need to go way back to Bell Labs and Kernigan and Ritchie and ask them
why they allowed, effectively, any character to be in a filename.

 
I wouldn't be surprised that they never gave the matter much thought,
outside of disallowing NULs and slashes.  That's where your "effectively"
comes in above. They probably assumed that nobody in his right mind would
use newlines unless he knew what he was doing, had a good reason for it,
and was ready to take responsibility for his actions.

That's my belief, but not having been there, and having no way to ask
them, that's all it is.  But most likely reason is simply they did not
consider limiting the characters that could be used in any way.

Unix and C have a long tradition of giving users enough rope to hang
themselves with.  For skilled people, it's less hassle than trying to
work around all sorts of arbitrary restrictions designed to protect
users from themselves.  The rise of the nanny state has made this
approach less popular...