Re: what are .sdk archives?

[Gregory Weston <uce@splook.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. 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.

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. Apple's moving away from the value of 
that by providing increasing support for on-the-fly thumbnails.