Actually scripts breaking if files or paths have a space in them seems to be a thorn in the side of dev/ops/it folks that never goes away, does it?

For example:

    D:\test>dir
    ...
    08/10/2023  09:29 AM    <DIR>          .
    08/10/2023  09:30 AM    <DIR>          Foo Bar
    08/10/2023  09:35 AM                79 Foo.bat
    ...

    D:\test>dir "Foo Bar"
    ...
    08/10/2023  09:30 AM    <DIR>          .
    08/10/2023  09:29 AM    <DIR>          ..
    08/10/2023  09:35 AM                79 Foo.bat
    ...
        
    D:\test>type Foo.bat
    @echo off
    echo Executable: %0
    echo Path to executable: %~dp0
    echo Params: %*

    D:\test>type "Foo Bar\Foo.bat"
    @echo off
    echo Executable: %0
    echo Path to executable: %~dp0
    echo Params: %*

    D:\test>Foo.bat hello
    Executable: Foo.bat
    Path to executable: D:\test\
    Params: hello
    
    D:\test>Foo Bar\Foo.bat hello
    Executable: Foo
    Path to executable: D:\test\
    Params: Bar\Foo.bat hello
    
    D:\test>"Foo Bar\Foo.bat" hello
    Executable: "Foo Bar\Foo.bat"
    Path to executable: D:\test\Foo Bar\
    Params: hello

    D:\test>

(btw most IT folks prefer powershell, if only because all the management tools are powershell modules)

Only because they were started to hit MAX_PATH there:

    C:\Users\Johnathan Aparecido da Silva\AppData\Local\ASUS\ASUS System Control Interface\AsusSoftwareManager
    C:\Documents and Settings\Johnathan Aparecido da Silva\AppData\Local\ASUS\ASUS System Control Interface\AsusSoftwareManager

I used it to hide my old virus/malware collection, made from what my computer was infected with through the years.

Related, any time I join a new group, that uses bash in any capacity, I introduce them all to the `shellcheck` utility [2], and run a shell script of the person with the largest ego through, as a "demo".

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/a/9838604/1487072

[2] Online version: https://www.shellcheck.net/

FORTRAN originally had the same limitation for function names, and that lead to some classics such as GEMM and SAXPY.

All kidding aside, but I gave up on this argument because I think people either get it or don’t and aside from trying a little conversation or something with guidance it’s a “can’t fix stupid” situation.

People usually want to explain why it’s so important and that’s worse than suffering their long function name.

I think it’s better to just accept ridiculous than to try to get consensus on what’s ridiculous and a spiral of wasted time.

The upside is that it doesn’t matter any more since long function names are supported and work. And autocomplete means it’s just as easy to use as “ATOPOIRA” or whatever madness they would name it with some restrictions.

But that being said, you're the reason why file systems are abstracted away more and more with all file system queries force fed through some kind of search engine.

Citation needed. I'm pretty sure the reason that happened is that Gen Z (and heck, definitely a good chunk of my millennial generation too) weren't ever taught what files and directories even are, so for them to be able to manage, product designers moved to a combo of "Your documents live inside the app you made them with" and "You search for your documents and they'll come up." Notably though, they never solved the other problems the filesystem solves, such as "but where are my files actually, I need to move them between devices or give them to another person."

Still, it would have been nice if a standard metadata format could be included with each file, in a way that survives file transfers.

A spotlight search for Chevy I get every document on my system that ever mentioned Chevy in random order. Maybe 1000 documents (or 10,000 if it helpfully decides to pull in e-mail, and thus picks up 9,000 marketing emails). If I search names for Chevy I am going to find the file I mentioned and any others where a human decided the file was about a Chevy. Same for Jane. If that's my partner, adding her name will just pull in every document that's ever mentioned her, like every tax form ever. But files named after her is a much smaller set.

Woah, your examples: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/essl/6.2?topic=vss-saxpy-daxpy-c...

About a decade off: MS-DOS was running on 8086 in the early 80s.