Re: what are .sdk archives?

["Charlie" <charlieDOTd@verEYEzon.net>]

"Gregory Weston" <uce@splook.com> wrote in message 
uce-80E76E.17091026122007@comcast.dca.giganews.com">news:uce-80E76E.17091026122007@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
> In article <SOycj.17006$HQ6.14297@trndny01>,
> "Charlie" <charlieDOTd@verEYEzon.net> wrote:
>
>> "Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
>> t56dnerBrK49gu_anZ2dnUVZ_jidnZ2d@comcast.com">news:t56dnerBrK49gu_anZ2dnUVZ_jidnZ2d@comcast.com...
>> >
>> > Snip <
>>
>> > Have I mentioned how much I wish the Mac would not add forks to
>> > files that don't have them?  ;-)
>> >
>> > -michael
>>
>> I agree and for that matter I never understood Apple's obsession with 
>> forked
>> files.  They seem to serve no useful purpose and in fact only complicate
>> things.
>
> They serve the purpose of providing a mechanism to attach arbitrary
> ancillary data streams to a directory entry without polluting the
> primary stream, which may be a standard, commodity format.

I'm hard pressed to see that as a "useful" purpose.

> The
> implementation details of the Macintosh resource fork are increasingly
> anachronistic, but the abstract benefit of forks is something that most
> vendors seem to be agreeing on lately.

I suppose I'm just dense, but I don't see any abstract or real benefits to 
resource forks.

> And for what it's worth, the only situation I can recall Mac OS adding a
> resource fork to a file that didn't already have one is when the user
> pastes a custom icon onto a file.

My experience with resource forks comes from using (and programming) an 
Apple IIgs.  I've never used a Mac but a recurrent theme on this newsgroup 
seems to be that it adds forks to files (disk images) that pass through it 
on their way from the internet to an Apple II.

Charlie