File-naming differences in OS X, Linux, and Windows

Confirm. Even though HFS+ (introduced with Mac OS 8.1) had support for (really) long file names, Mac OS couldn't do more than 31 characters until OS X came out. Meanwhile, I had already developed the habit of creating empty folders with very long file names to serve as notes with Windows in 1995. So yes, Apple had 31 characters for all those years while MS had 8.3, but MS had 255 five years ahead of Apple. Of course, UNIX was there all along. 8.3 is certainly limiting, I've bumped my head against the 31-character limit as well.

Then there's the total path length, which made it nicer to be in C:WindowsDesktop instead of the totally-retarded C:Documents and Settingsetcetcetc. This is also an issue on servers, where the path the user sees is not the same as the path the machine sees. Back on the Mac side, there are Carbon/Cocoa issues, which is why (I think) you can't make a long-name file in MS Word 2001. I remember seeing that happen in a lot of early OS X apps but not much any more. This didn't affect Photoshop 7, but then, PS7 doesn't use the OS's dialog.

Scott, I could be mistaken, but if I remember correctly whatever version of MacOS was current (8.something?) when Win95 cane out (first Win OS to support 256-characters) supported "long" filenames that were only 30 or so characters. Like I said, my memory might be bad, but someone else should be able to confirm or deny.

not everyone is american ?

The article doesn't discuss the usage of non-alpha-neumeric based languages as filenames such as Chinese characters. Not everyone in the world uses an alphabet.