[wizofaus]

Given the preponderance of 3 major operating systems, I'd think it's sensible for user-level applications to disallow creation of filenames that would cause problems on any of them. Except arguably that could even include using spaces or periods... obviously in an ideal world such restrictions wouldn't exist, but I'm not sure how to realistically push for such a world. E.g. my suggestion would be to reserve non-printable characters (below Ascii 32) for use as separators/delimiters in as many contexts where that's workable. Obviously some sort of convention would then need to exist as to how they were displayed and typed in, and I very much doubt I'll ever see it happen, but I'm sure it would solve a lot of mis-parsing bugs that show up with frustrating regularity.

[lostlogin]

I suppose I’m actually criticising Microsoft and the backwards compatibility that is now dictating practices due to long gone limitations.

It is painful being forced up update things due to software changing underneath you, but there must be a middle road.