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from the didn't-need-those-folders-anyway dept.
in with a story on Robert Elder Software blog entitled Silently Corrupting an Eclipse Workspace: The Ultimate Prank:
Next time your co-worker asks:
"What's the best way to back up my Eclipse workspace on Windows?"
you can tell them "Just right-click on it and select 'Send to Compressed (zipped) folder' and save the zip file". Unbeknownst to them, you just pulled the ultimate prank by telling them to make a corrupted backup!
What your friend probably doesn't realize is that the Windows 'Send to Compressed (zipped) folder' utility has a mandatory optional feature to automatically not include certain folders in the archive without telling you. This is a great feature because it demonstrates the excellent sense of humour that the authors of Microsoft Windows have. This feature was no doubt included to allow you to play a variety of hilarious pranks on others by causing them lose data, only to find out about it years later when they want to open the archive and recover it.
The blog post goes on to identify other idiosyncrasies with how Windows mishandles directories whose names start with a period and/or contain Unicode characters.
Reasons you haven't switched to Linux (cont.):
3. Windows has superior development tools.
What other issues have you found with how Windows handles filenames?
(Score: 1, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday March 24 2017, @06:56PM (9 children)
That the application's user interface has an explicit export and import for both workspaces and projects, why would you ever trust your OS to do it right?
And if all you want to do is troll, eclipse will let you install arbitrary python scripts into the engine Window->Preferences->Scripting->Script Locations. If you've got any creativity at all, congratulations, fucking with your coworkers is easy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jdavidb on Friday March 24 2017, @07:16PM (4 children)
I think to really get the implication of this story, you have to make it about Windows rather than about Eclipse. Windows has a built-in file compression menu option that is broken because it silently excludes files that are important to some applications, Eclipse being one example. I wonder what else it excludes.
I'm glad I make most of my compressed files on Windows with gzip under Cygwin, or else 7-zip.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday March 24 2017, @07:19PM
horribledisgustinginhumanporn.jpg->7-zip->compress and send to->Boss's wife
Thanks 7-zip!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by driverless on Saturday March 25 2017, @12:40AM (2 children)
I realise it's fun to bash Microsoft over this, but the complaint is really about Windows not handling very Unix-specific filename conventions properly. The reason why Windows is extra careful, possibly excessively so, about how it deals with dot+suffix is because that's the way it does file typing, and has done for about quarter of a century. This happens to interact badly with Unix' "filenames beginning with a dot are hidden". You could just as easily take it in the other direction, if you zip a hidden (attribute +H under Windows) file and unzip it under Unix, it's no longer hidden. Oh noes! Unix is b0rked!
The issue of it only storing the first dot+filename directory may well be something to do with how Explorer handles these things. I don't know, but the answer is "don't rely on platform-specific semantics of file naming", not "complain when a platform totally unlike your one does things differently".
(Just for references, I'm a FreeBSD user, so I have no skin in this game, just trying to inject some balance into the debate).
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:07AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:41AM
Not compressing hidden folders by default seems to be in-line with Window's philosophy. So the bug should be that it's compressing the first one ;).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Friday March 24 2017, @07:16PM (1 child)
That, and how is the above a prank? That just sounds like being a dick. Usually a prank on a computer has an "uninstall" feature, while years later, the above has no recourse. What if that was the only copy?
I came here thinking that somebody had some scripts for Eclipse to mess with a coder in subtle ways like you suggested.
Did Biff Tannen start coding or something?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Jiro on Saturday March 25 2017, @06:36AM
He's actually complaining about how Windows mishandles file names. Phrasing it as a fun way of committing a prank is sarcasm; he isn't actually suggesting it would be a good prank.
In other words, whoosh.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 24 2017, @07:45PM (1 child)
Spoken like a Windows user. :-)
#define while if // make code run faster
#define struct union // use less memory
Universal health care is so complex that only 32 of 33 developed nations have found a way to make it work.
(Score: 5, Funny) by ikanreed on Friday March 24 2017, @07:48PM
Hey, look, the software is going to get the wrong answer either way, so my goal is now to get the wrong answer in the least amount of time.