__/ [ Els ] on Tuesday 14 March 2006 17:28 \__
> Catherine Milton wrote:
>
>> Please will someone tell me what the disctinction is between .htm and
>> .html?
>
> .htm is one letter shorter, and that's all there is to it, really.
>
> (of course there is some history, like only 3 letter extensions in a
> faraway past or something, but that doesn't matter today)
.HTM complies with the limit imposed on file extensions in DOS. The Web was
conceived and developed in a non-DOS environment (unless I am mistaken), so
the .HTML suffix should be enough to indicate the file type to the server.
In principle, the idea of file extensions that are limited to 3 characters
and/or digits was inherited rather than forced for logical reasons. I stick
with .HTML myself. Windows tools will typically insist on generating files
with the .HTM extension.
Hope it helps,
Roy
PS - If you ever wonder about filetype code collisions (different formats
with the same extension), think again about the number of allowed symbols in
the extension part. Backward compatibility with DOS has become an obsession.
PROGRA~1 is one among many classic examples of counter-intuitiveness.
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Life is too short to proofread"
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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