[Python-Dev] PEP 4XX: pyzaa "Improving Python ZIP Application Support"

[Nick Coghlan]

On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On 04/05/13 15:13, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>>
>> Steven D'Aprano writes:
>>
>>   > > Rather than risk obscure bugs, I would suggest restricting the
>> extensions
>>   > > to 3 characters. For the “Windowed Python ZIP Applications” case,
>> could we
>>   > > use .pzw as the extension instead of .pyzw?
>>
>> +0
>>
>>   > Many official Microsoft file extensions are four or more letters,
>>   > e.g. docx.
>>
>> Give us a non-MS example, please.  Nobody in their right mind would
>> clash with a major MS product's naming conventions.  Not even if their
>> file format implements Digital-Ocular Coordination eXtensions.  And a
>> shell that borks the Borg's extensions won't make it in the market.
>
>
>
> I'm afraid I don't understand your question. Are you suggesting that four
> letter extensions are restricted to Microsoft products? If so, that would be
> an excellent reason to avoid .pyzw, but I don't believe that is the case.
>
> Common 4+ letter extensions include .html, .tiff, .jpeg, .mpeg, .midi, .java
> and .torrent.

We don't need examples of arbitrary data file extentions, we need
examples of 4 letter extensions that are known to work correctly when
placed on PATHEXT, including when called from PowerShell. In the
absence of confirmation that 4-letter extensions work reliably in such
cases, it seems wise to abbreviate the Windows GUI application
extension as .pzw.

I've also cc'ed Steve Dower, since investigation of this kind of
Windows behavioural question is one of the things he offered
distuils-sig help with after PyCon US :)

Cheers,
Nick.

P.S. Steve, FYI, here is Paul's original concern:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2013-May/125928.html

--
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia