Tim wrote:
Tim wrote:
Why do people do this? Faced with instructions that say how to burn a
disc from ISOs, or having to find said instructions, they go looking for
something else to unpack the image file.
Mike McCarty:
Well, use of language like this is part of what causes the confusion.
One does not "unpack" an ISO, because an ISO is not a "packed file".
It is a file system. One can mount it, but not "unpack" or "extract".
These words should properly only be used with .tar, .arc, .zip, .rar,
.lzh, .gz, etc. files. Not with .iso.
Tim:
I note that you don't actually address the point I made, which is
that the use of words like "unpack" with an ISO may be contributing
to the problem.
Well to be really pedantic, unpacking doesn't *have* to refer to
Mike McCarty:
I wasn't being pedantic. I pointed out that the use of language
like that was confusing and inappropriate. This is practical and
pragmatic. I emphatically did not insist that anyone stop using
that term, did I?
You *were* being pedantic ("one does not unpack an ISO because...")
Maybe you use the word "pedantic" in a way I don't understand.
I'd call that didactic, maybe, but not pedantic.
Anyway, I have never used terms like "unpack" with regards to
an ISO image, or even anything like an ISO image, like a floppy
disc image, for example, which I have been making and using for
quite a number of years.
So what? Just because *you* don't use the term, doesn't mean that it's
incorrect. To anyone who looks at one big file that contains lots of
other files, getting one file out of the overall package *is* unpacking
it.
But it doesn't contain lots of other files. It contains a file system,
which is not just a lot of files.
It's perfectly feasible to do such an action, just try opening an ISO
file in the "archive manager" and "extract" a file from the ISO images
file.
And taking a rather obtuse, but not totally incorrect point of view; if
I make an ISO file of a CD-ROM, to back up somewhere else, I *have*
"archived" it. I might well want to extract one file from an ISO, and I
have actually done that on one or two occasions.
I was careful not to use the word "archive", and yet you act as
if I did.
You gave a great big long list of archive types. You're being pedantic
again that you didn't use the word archive, though you certainly did
talk about archives.
I didn't use the term "archive" because it has more than one meaning.
I was particularly trying to avoid the possible confusion of "archive"
in the sense of "backup" and "archive" in the sense of "collection
of files made for convenience of transport and/or for compression".
Only the latter meaning was intended. And, although I tried to
avoid that possible confusion, you brought it up anyway. Perhaps
I should have made some statement about that in the other email.
Stop playing this "I didn't say that" game on here, it's getting really
tired.
First, I'm not playing games.
Second, I've been polite.
Third, I suppose that you are getting tired.
I don't like other people attributing motives to me. I didn't
use the word "archive" for the express reason I gave above. And that
is why I mentioned that fact. I consciously avoided the use of
the term. I think it is fair for someone who consciously avoided
using certain language to object when a response is made as if
the avoided language were used.
Mike
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