Warp wrote:
>   What would be the problem of, for example, supporting soft links natively
> in Windows Explorer? 

Part of the problem comes from programs that don't support soft links 
getting caught in loops.

Why the heck would

>   What would be the problem of adding an option to Windows Explorer to show
> exact byte sizes of files?

The properties page already tells you that.  And which byte count do you 
want? Compressed bytes? Uncompressed bytes? Bytes of disk space occupied? Do 
you count alternate streams? How about overhead streams like ACLs and crypto 
keys? "dir" already shows that.

So write an extension, if it bothers you. That's the cool thing about 
Windows. Once you learn how to talk between parts, you can do all kinds of 
things. Like the tortise svn client, for example.

> I really can't think of any drawback. If someone
> wants to use the current mode, go ahead, but why not offer exact byte counts
> for people who want them? What would be the problem?

There are a zillion things that some people want.

>   (That's actually something I really hate in MacOS X Finder. There's no way
> to make it list the actual size in bytes of files. Instead, it shows a rounded
> size like Windows... but of the disk space the file is taking rather than the
> actual size of the file.

Which makes perfect sense if you care, because people want to know whether 
the file will fit somewhere.

> You can get this info from a context menu the hard way, but it's very
> inconvenient.)

In Windows, you select the files and pick "properties" and it tells you the 
size. Not that hard.

>   Why is it so hard to show exact byte counts in graphical file browsers?
> Even Konqueror (the default file browser in OpenSUSE) is able to show them
> easily.

You're bitching that a nerd feature is convenient in Linux and not Windows? 
You're a nerd. Exact file sizes are important to programmers, not users.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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