Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames

Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames

Sure, almost all files already follow these conventions. Except when they don't. And when they don't, millions of programs subtly stop working. Everyone who does "find . blah | stuff" is writing bad code, because filenames can contain newlines deep in the directory tree. If we get rid of the nonsense, then it's easy to write correct programs; today, it takes herculean effort, and few people do so. It's a double-edged sword, but users get cut by both sides. I have yet to find a real use case for including control characters in filenames, for example, but plenty of reasons why it shouldn't ever happen.