To underscore or not to underscore?

pdb — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:05:50 -0800

Is there an advantage to having an underscore in a file name? I'm devising a naming standard for some time tracking worksheets at work. For some reason, many years ago I started to put underscores in file names containing dates, like this:

20061223_pdb weeklytimesheet.xls
20061223_tjd weeklytimesheet.xls

instead of just naming them like this:

20061223pdb weeklytimesheet.xls
20061223tjd weeklytimesheet.xls

the belief being that the underscore will allow for more accurate sorting (and easier finding) of the files in Windows Explorer. I don't know where I got the underscore-is-better notion, but I've done it forever; a coworker challenged me on it today, and I had no concrete reason why it would be better.

Is there an actual reason why adding an underscore is better, or is it just a stylistic habit I acquired?

_ = " "

bobot — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 07:15:09 -0800

[OS X filter] There was a recent question about nice fixed-width fonts. I tried Bitstream Vera Sans on OS X and love it- I'd like to make it my new Terminal.app font. Unfortunately, the _ character does not display. Since a lot of the coders I work with use _ to seperate words in variable names, this is a big problem for me. Google turns up... my comment in the referenced thread, and that's it. Any other Mac users found a solution?

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To underscore or not to underscore?

_ = " "