Today, Alejandro made these interesting comments ...
this is great, the beauty of different people trying to talk
about different things for different reasons and with
different purposes...hehe well I will keep trying to find a
file system with long file names until I get bored and invent
a different project to work in. I appreciate your comments and
if I find anything else I think it would be good for a file
system, in its broadest definition, I will let you know. After
all you might be right and after 200 is wasted and in fact my
project is not that bad with 256 characters, but it "might" be
an issue sometimes. That said I will take your 150-200.
You have a great weekend too.
Alejandro, I have neither a quarrel with you nor any reason why I
don't want to learn from your perspective(s), which are different
than mine but completely valid.
I think I see from your comments this time that you do view this
as an interesting sidelight to whatever it is you do
professionally and/or personally on your PC(s), and I see that
you, too, are in learn mode. That's great.
I appreciate that you appreciate my comments. Other than my first
reply, I haven't really said much except ask you questions.
Without further input from you for your "hobby", we are just
carrying on a friendly but academic discussion. If/when you want
to get down to cases, which I would welcome, just give me some
hints.
As to absolute file length limits, I CAN get around the optical
thing with the double redundant external HD system I have in
place for work-in-progress and periodic full and incremental
backups with one extra 200 gig external safely in a fireproof
lock box in my basement 3 feet off the floor and a 2nd 200 gig in
my bank's safety deposit box. So, if Murphy visited and I had a
really, really huge catastrophe and had to totally rebuild my 2
PCs or even buy new ones if they were destroyed, my important
install discs are in the bank and I could restore all my data
back no more than say 6 weeks. And, for all of this, I can use
the full NTFS file names, subject of course to counting the full
path.
As to optical, only a few of those are in the bank, the rest are
in my basement. That is reasonably safe from B & E thefts and
minor fires upstairs or even a bad weather problem such as gale
winds, torrential rains, heavy snowfall, etc. A tornado is
possible but rare and may skip my house or only partially damage
it. My main risk, I think, is a fire. Depending on where it
starts and where it spreads, the fire department would take out
my systems and local stored backups with water or the flames
would melt them.
Since I am no longer a pro of any sort, my main concern is
preserving valuable and irreplaceable digital data, or data which
would be very time-consuming to recreate. So, for now, I'll live
with about 120 character names, and for some types of files, like
MP3s for my car or home system, I stay at 64 or less so I can use
Joliet instead of UDF. I'm sure there's better methods of
managing my folders and files than what I'm doing, but it seems
to work well with minimal effort to find things using either XP's
Search function or a graphics thumbnail program.
Someday, in another life, I may wake up one morning and see the
light of inspiration and conviction you are seeing right now, and
I'll be anxious for more characters. Until then, stay in touch.
