Re: Why the Apple II was on the right track...

[jefbla@bconnex.net (Jeff Blakeney)]

On Mon, 03 Mar 1997 23:18:52 -0500, sheldon@atlcom.net (Sheldon Simms)
wrote:

>Actually one of the things that makes uninstalling so much easier on
>Macs is the resource fork. Often times, stuff that would be stashed in
>the resource fork of an application on Macs is stored in umpteen zillion
>files strewn all over the place on a Windows PC.

I've been telling a lot of people lately that one of the most
important things that IBM users should learn is how to organize their
files.  I have stuff on my 486 like: c:\mailprog\mail\jeff\mail.  Why
bother with the second mail directory?  I don't get it.

And don't even bother looking in the Windows directory because you'll
hardly ever find anything that you might be interested in.  Also, it
is practically impossible to know what really needs to be there and
you can't stop all those programs you install from putting stuff there
(ususally without telling you).

Well, enough griping.

>The one thing that *always* gets left behind on Macs is preference files/
>folders. All Mac users should dig through the preference folder every
>now and then to clear out dead wood.

This is why I am against the idea of a */SYSTEM/PREFERENCES folder as
well as the */SYSTEM/HELP that Seven Hills started with their new help
NDA.  Preferences for a program and any related help files should be
stored with the program.  Either in the same directory as the program
or in its resource fork.

Fortunately, Seven Hills has been pretty good with their programs
allowing you to store the preferences in the SYSTEM folder or the
programs folder.  Unfortunately they don't ask you which you would
prefer when you install the program so if you don't want it in your
SYSTEM folder, you have to move it out yourself manually.