File extension

[zipotron]

Hello, first thing congratulate for this awesome work, I just discover this project last weekend and got in love with it.
I am writing this issue because, I discover by accident Silice. I found an interesting work (The PAWSv2 risc-v softcore) and I wanted to check it, when I saw the .ice extension I recognize it as a IceStusio files, and then try to open with my IceStudio, other amazing opensource project.
The big surprise was to discover that those .ice files was corresponding to another completely different project, this one, and the surprise became even bigger when discover that Github is not making the difference between the IceStudio code and the Silice code (for Github everything is "Slice") .
BTW Github is tagging .ice as a "Slice" not "Silice".

[sylefeb]

Hi - thanks and welcome to Silice! PAWS is great, so many excellent features and games!

Extension: that is a good point. Unfortunately I wasn't aware about the file extension collision until late in the project, and I agree this is not ideal. I've since been thinking of changing it. This has little technical impact but a rather wide one in terms of repository. I'll bump this up in priority.

[rob-ng15]

Cheers for looking at PAWSv2, I hope you like it. Silice is a great environment for learning about FPGA programming, and sylefeb is great as a project leader on Silice.

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On Mon, 17 Jan 2022, 07:56 sylefeb, ***@***.***> wrote: Hi - thanks and welcome to Silice! PAWS is great, so many excellent features and games! Extension: that is a good point. Unfortunately I wasn't aware about the file extension collision until late in the project, and I agree this is not ideal. I've since been thinking of changing it. This has little technical impact but a rather wide one in terms of repository. I'll bump this up in priority. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#206 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AN4SYT6JOTLWHNXJSBOVO7TUWPDRTANCNFSM5MD5JOTA> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[sylefeb]

Hi Rob, thanks :-) Cheers!

[sylefeb]

A few ideas on extensions:

• ".silice", after all most systems should support more than 3 letters? (e.g. ".html")
• ".si" short, does not seem too crowded, at least not in the FPGA space. Also, that's Silicon in the element table.
• ".ic" is not bad either, and has the advantage to be a single letter change.

[rob-ng15]

I'm happy with any of those, but I do like .silice as definitive, exactly as per tin (don't worry if you don't get this reference, English joke).

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On Mon, 17 Jan 2022, 16:00 sylefeb, ***@***.***> wrote: A few ideas on extensions: - ".silice", after all most systems should support more than 3 letters? (e.g. ".html") - ".si" short, does not seem too crowded, at least not in the FPGA space. Also, that's Silicon in the element table. - ".ic" is not bad either, and has the advantage to be a single letter change. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#206 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AN4SYT2DT6L37OLJ3TZ3XKLUWQ4JDANCNFSM5MD5JOTA> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[umarcor]

@zipotron, I think that GitHub's Slice refers to a third file format. It's Slice (Specification Language for Ice) and Internet Communications Engine (Ice):

• https://github.com/github/linguist/blob/80f3531e8a1014a23f4606458e5a528053ed3cac/lib/linguist/languages.yml#L5730-L5737
• https://doc.zeroc.com/ice/3.6/introduction

The extension is also listed in https://github.com/github/linguist/blob/80f3531e8a1014a23f4606458e5a528053ed3cac/lib/linguist/languages.yml#L2707, which is the Icestudio case I believe.

A few ideas on extensions:

• ".silice", after all most systems should support more than 3 letters? (e.g. ".html")
• ".si" short, does not seem too crowded, at least not in the FPGA space. Also, that's Silicon in the element table.
• ".ic" is not bad either, and has the advantage to be a single letter change.

IIRC, there are historical reasons to use three characters for extensions. That might be irrelevant nowadays, but worth giving a thought. In the VHDL community, there is fragmentation between .vhd and .vhdl for that reason. See the TIP in http://ghdl.github.io/ghdl/quick_start/simulation/hello/index.html.

In this case, the content of Silice's .ice files should be very obviously different from Icestudio's (which are JSON) for any parser/analyser. ""If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck"". Therefore, it might be reasonable to acknowledge the polymorphism rather that try changing the user bases.

Other than that, I like that .si is the symbol in the element table.

[sylefeb]

Hi Unai - thanks for the suggestions! Yes I am not 100% comfortable with using a 'long' extension, .html also has .htm for instance. I'd assume most 2022 systems would be fine with it, but ... old habits tend to stick around ;)
Maybe a good approach is to encourage .silice and optionally .si for short. In fact, I don't think there are any instances where the extension truly matters in the code base: most likely the user could use anything (I'll check and confirm). So this is mostly for 'aesthetics' in the code base. In any case, I'll make sure the .ice is still supported so as to not break anything!

(Side note: the reason I think the change is needed is because IceStudio is also for fpga hardware design, so that's one extension for two closely related things -- which is source of confusion.)

[zipotron]

Thanks Unai! Well, And .sil? Or .slc (just consonants)?

[zipotron]

Just for fill the three characters, because the idea of .si is cool

[sylefeb]

I thought of .slc as well but this one is used for slice formats in Additive Manufacturing (since there is some confusion between Silice and Slice it might reinforce it further, plus I also do AM software so I might get confused myself ;) )
.sil is definitely an option, but I like .si more due to the element table. Also it seems <=3 character should be fine? (I am thinking of python's .py for instance)

[umarcor]

I think that two characters (.si) is ok. As @sylefeb said, several well-known extensions have one or two characters. The limitation in "8.3 filename" is as follows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.3_filename

8.3 filenames are limited to at most eight characters (after any directory specifier), followed optionally by a filename extension consisting of a period . and at most three further characters. For systems that only support 8.3 filenames, excess characters are ignored.

[zipotron]

I definitely like .si

[sylefeb]

Closing ; draft branch has now transitioned to .si (merge with master planned soon). Thanks everyone for the discussion!