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D or d come on (i.imgur.com)

submitted 1 year ago by genfood@feddit.de to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev

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[-] Feyter@programming.dev 26 points 1 year ago

I don't get it... "D" is a complete different character than "d" is.

It's like wondering why "file1" is not opened when I typed in "file2".

[-] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 22 points 1 year ago

that's not how language works though, in human language (i know this can be confusing) d and D are the same letter just in different forms.

It's one thing to have case sensitivity in programs doing data manipulation, that makes sense because you don't want the program to accidentally use the wrong files without supervision.

But when you have an interactive prompt you know what you're doing, you can see if you entered the wrong directory, and you're generally going to be working in directories that you have yourself organized.

[-] 4am@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Doesn't tab completion solve this if there are no alternatives with matching case? sounds like a PBKAC

[-] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 year ago

On Windows filenames are case insensitive at least usually, some people are used to that. But that is poor design for so many reasons, Turkish I being one of them.

[-] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 year ago

Now take Android. Files are case-sensitive yet you can't create 2 files with same name if they only vary in case.

[-] Reil@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

One of the most pointlessly annoying things I've had to deal with was trying to move a process made for Linux onto a Windows MINGW/cygwin-type environment where one of the scripts would generate ".filename" AND ".FileName" files. :|

[-] oleorun@real.lemmy.fan 1 points 1 year ago

TIL, thanks. I wonder why they chose to do it this way.

[-] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

They cater to windows users that are used to the quirks of their broken system.

[-] lemmonade@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

You could also say that down should not complete to download since those are completely different strings and you shouldn't expect one to get you the other.

[-] Feyter@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

Sorry, down is a substring of download I don't get your point either?

[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago

Substring is not string.

If they were interchangeable, then "D" & "d" should be too.

[-] Feyter@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

down matches down* because * also includes empty string. Also download matches down*

D matches D* but d is not matching D* because D is a different character than d.

[-] lemmonade@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

but why do we have to match specifically against substr*? it's not a law of nature, we could also match against the regex (?i)substr(?-i).*

not saying that one option is necessarily better, but I don't see a good reason for which any one of these options would be terrible

[-] Feyter@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Because usability. If you have the files down down1 down2 downxyz and download and the user only knows that it was "something with down" it's best to show the user everything matching "down*" and let the user decide what's the correct one.

Also I'm not sure but wouldn't your expression show everything if only one character would be entered?

And again I don't see this solving anything if the entered string actually contains other characters then what's in the file (D != d)

Yes one could argue that some form of advanced algorithm or even AI could be used to identify such use case like download and Download but this is programming Humor, not linguisic Humor.

[-] lemmonade@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

would it not be usable to have completion be case insensitive? I seem to be able to use that... if I only remember "something with down", I could just as easily forget the capitalization of "down". maybe I have downloads and Down? why not show everything matching case insensitively and let the user decide what's the correct one?

I didn't really understand what you thought the regex did incorrectly, but I think the regex works fine, at least for most implementations, anyways what I meant is just a case insensitive version of the regular substring completion, which shouldn't be too difficult to make.

The only thing it solves is the frustration of having to look for a file/directory twice because you didn't remember it's capitalization. again, those are different characters just like a do and downloads are different strings, but it can be easier for users if they can just press tab and let the computer fill the part of the name the don't remember (or don't want to type).

you don't need an advanced algorithm or and AI, there are many easy ways to make completion case insensitive (like that regex for example). Issues involving names are inherently somewhat linguistic, but either way interactive shells are meant to be (at least somewhat) usable to humans, and as seen by the post, some people would prefer completion to be case insensitive.