Tim Streater wrote:
In article , nospam
wrote:

In article , Jolly Roger
wrote:

On 2017-12-12, Arthur Wood wrote:
guy named Fudman who is very knowledgeable in bimmer engines so for
him to complain means that it's not obvious to all Macintosh users -
but when I

Being knowledgeable about car engines doesn't magically make him
representative of all Macintosh users. I'm willing to bet most Mac users
know how to rename a file. Anyone who uses all of the above platforms on
a regular basis knows renaming files on macOS is just as simple as it is
on Linux or Windows. Click the file's name and you are in filename
editing mode - simple.

the problem is that he changed the file's extension and hide extensions
is normally on.
the same problem exists on windows but he's too stupid to realize what
the actual problem is and would rather just troll under yet another
nym.

This whole issue is just another bit of fallout from the Windows
nonsense of *requiring* a file extension.


The HOSTS file, an OS file provided by Microsoft, has no file extension.

I think an extension is "recommended" for naive users.

And the OS does have the ridiculous default of *hiding* the
extension field in File Explorer, forcing all of us in the
Windows group, to turn the blasted thing on, after every
Windows install we do. So I certainly wouldn't argue that
the extension is "strongly recommended" by MS, by their
bad choice of defaults. The extension should be exposed,
to help naive users spot ".scr type" malware.

But once you've got your sea legs, you can do whatever
the hell you want. If you want to drag and drop the
HOSTS file on top of an open Notepad window, you can.
Or drop a PDF file from HP, that has no PDF extension,
onto an open Acrobat Reader window.

And we also take advantage of the extension subterfuge, by
*purposely* adding an extension to the extension, to stop
the OS from dispatching dangerous files. So for example,
if I download malware.exe, I can rename it to malware.exe.bak,
neutering it against double-click accidents.

The topic has its pluses and minuses.

It's like driving on the left, or driving on the right.
You get used to it.

Paul