"This is your silly web browser doing that. The file is correctly named"
About this Quote
A quiet dunk, delivered in the tone of someone who has debugged the same misunderstanding a thousand times. Rasmus Lerdorf is pointing a finger not at the user, not even at the server, but at the “silly web browser” - a phrase that shrinks a supposedly authoritative piece of software into a quirky, fallible intermediary. The intent is practical (stop blaming the file, stop renaming it), but the subtext is cultural: computers don’t “just do” things; layers of software make opinionated choices, and the most user-facing layer often gets away with it.
It works because it flips the default assumption. People tend to treat what they see in a browser as ground truth: if the filename looks wrong, the file must be wrong. Lerdorf reasserts a classic engineer’s hierarchy of blame: the file system and server-side reality are more trustworthy than a client that munges names for convenience, compatibility, or security theater. “Correctly named” is a small, sharp insistence that standards and intent exist upstream, even if the interface smooths them into nonsense.
The line also reads like an artifact of web-era trench warfare, when browsers routinely “helped” by guessing encodings, altering downloads, or interpreting headers creatively. Underneath the mild insult is a defense of predictability: if the browser silently rewrites reality, it turns debugging into folklore. Lerdorf’s jab is really a plea for clear contracts between layers - and for skepticism toward whatever the front-end claims is happening.
It works because it flips the default assumption. People tend to treat what they see in a browser as ground truth: if the filename looks wrong, the file must be wrong. Lerdorf reasserts a classic engineer’s hierarchy of blame: the file system and server-side reality are more trustworthy than a client that munges names for convenience, compatibility, or security theater. “Correctly named” is a small, sharp insistence that standards and intent exist upstream, even if the interface smooths them into nonsense.
The line also reads like an artifact of web-era trench warfare, when browsers routinely “helped” by guessing encodings, altering downloads, or interpreting headers creatively. Underneath the mild insult is a defense of predictability: if the browser silently rewrites reality, it turns debugging into folklore. Lerdorf’s jab is really a plea for clear contracts between layers - and for skepticism toward whatever the front-end claims is happening.
Quote Details
| Topic | Coding & Programming |
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