emblem-symbolic-link

[Jakob Petsovits]

On Monday, 16. July 2007, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> Jakob Petsovits wrote:
> > On Monday, 16. July 2007, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> >> Well, hard links can't be distinguished from normal files.  They *are*
> >> just normal files.  A hard link is simply a directory entry pointing to
> >> a particular inode.  When we talk about 'hard linking' we usually mean
> >> that we've created a new link to an existing inode, but, post-link,
> >> there's no way to tell which directory entry was the 'original' and
> >> which is the 'copy'.
> >
> > For that matter, is is necessary at all to have "symbolic" included in
> > the icon name if the only user-visible link type is symbolic links
> > anyhow?
> >
> > Why not change the name to just "emblem-link"?
>
> Not to sound flippant or dismissive, but... who cares?  It's already how
> it is, so why make extra work for something that's purely an
> implementation detail that end-users won't see anyway?

In order to get it right, I would say. There's only one naming standard, and 
few projects actively use it yet, so we've got the opportunity to do it 
right.

Imho, the most important goals of a standard should be a) finding common 
ground for different projects, and b) Doing Stuff Right (TM). A standard that 
prefers convenience over correctness is not worth a dime, and I'll happily 
disregard stuff that is done wrong. emblem-symbolic-link might not justify to 
break with the spec, but I do expect the spec maintainers to strive for the 
best possible solution, not the most convenient one.

> If it's necessary to expand the use of emblem-symbolic-link for other types
> of links, this can be noted in the description in the icon naming spec.

That would be really ugly.

Sorry for the rant,
  Jakob