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Dotfile madness (2019)

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Re: Dotfile madness (2019)

#51

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

deburo wrote: post #41
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #33

What I personally find more egregious are dotfiles and dot-dirs on Windows , created by half-baked ports of Unix-first software (such as `ssh`). Windows has `%APPDATA%` and `%LOCALAPPDATA%` that are accessible with `ShGetKnownFolderPath`[0], using the appropriate `KNOWNFOLDERID`[1]; all programs should put their configuration and cache data in these paths. Windows also doesn't know what the dot at the beginning of a…

On Windows anyway, the root of the user profile is already filled with garbage directories, and so a few more dot-dirs and files feel par for the course. The advantage is that accessing your root dir is easier than typing out %appdata% in File Explorer.

One could say the same for ~ on Linux. 'It's already bad' isn't an excuse for sloppy programming.

Software should ideally adhere to OS norms. Better still, software shouldn't be opaque about where global/user-specific cache/config data is stored, and should prompt users to choose (or set sane defaults, again adhering to OS norms).

IMO the video game industry is a big offender of home-folder pollution, with saves and configs being splattered all over %USERPROFILE%\Documents, %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\ (which is a legacy holdover from Windows XP), %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games (which does have a corresponding KNOWNFOLDERID), etc etc.

Re: Dotfile madness (2019)

#52

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

kragen wrote: post #49
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally hate the XDG directories. It’s annoying for different part of an application’s data to be split between `~/.config`, `~/.Cache`, etc. Rather than for all the data for the `foo` program to be in a file named something like `~/.foo*`

I find it useful; I might want to version-control .config but definitely not .cache. And if the program is broken I might blow away .cache but not .config.

That still works if it’s `~/.foo/cache`

Re: Dotfile madness (2019)

#53

Post by bbkane »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #33

What I personally find more egregious are dotfiles and dot-dirs on Windows , created by half-baked ports of Unix-first software (such as `ssh`). Windows has `%APPDATA%` and `%LOCALAPPDATA%` that are accessible with `ShGetKnownFolderPath`[0], using the appropriate `KNOWNFOLDERID`[1]; all programs should put their configuration and cache data in these paths. Windows also doesn't know what the dot at the beginning of a…

I prefer the app placing the config in the same place on every system. It makes it easier for me to find the file regardless of OS (to modify or back up with a script) and it's simpler for the app dev to write the code for as well.

I recognize this is probably because I first learned about config files on a Unixy system, it's not the "native way" for Windows, and other people have stronger cases for their preference, but this is my preference and I'm stickin to it :)

Re: Dotfile madness (2019)

#54

Post by aliqot »

helf wrote: post #47
pabs3 wrote: post #45

This is kind of a thing of the past with Flatpak, since apps can only create files within their sandbox's $HOME, which isn't the same as the user's $HOME. Now we just need deb/rpm/etc apps to be sandboxed in a similar way using bubblewrap (the tool Flatpak uses for sandboxing).

Yeah… but then you are using flatpaks.

If you'd have said this way back I'd have had my hands up like "What's wrong with flatpak", but as I moved to smaller hardware, I started to realize how much space a mainly flatpak environment takes up. It kind of makes sense in retrospect, so I'm not sure what I was expecting.

Re: Dotfile madness (2019)

#55

Post by jsmeaton »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #42
slondr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XDG has real practical benefits, though.

I personally hate the XDG directories. It’s annoying for different part of an application’s data to be split between `~/.config`, `~/.Cache`, etc. Rather than for all the data for the `foo` program to be in a file named something like `~/.foo*`

Asked out of ignorance, but do the envvars not allow one to easily co-locate data/config/cache by setting them all to the same value?

Re: Dotfile madness (2019)

#56

Post by matheusmoreira »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #33

What I personally find more egregious are dotfiles and dot-dirs on Windows , created by half-baked ports of Unix-first software (such as `ssh`). Windows has `%APPDATA%` and `%LOCALAPPDATA%` that are accessible with `ShGetKnownFolderPath`[0], using the appropriate `KNOWNFOLDERID`[1]; all programs should put their configuration and cache data in these paths. Windows also doesn't know what the dot at the beginning of a…

I don't find it egregious at all. Nobody should go out of their way to integrate with Windows APIs when files work just fine everywhere.

Re: Dotfile madness (2019)

#58

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

bbkane wrote: post #53
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #33

What I personally find more egregious are dotfiles and dot-dirs on Windows , created by half-baked ports of Unix-first software (such as `ssh`). Windows has `%APPDATA%` and `%LOCALAPPDATA%` that are accessible with `ShGetKnownFolderPath`[0], using the appropriate `KNOWNFOLDERID`[1]; all programs should put their configuration and cache data in these paths. Windows also doesn't know what the dot at the beginning of a…

I prefer the app placing the config in the same place on every system. It makes it easier for me to find the file regardless of OS (to modify or back up with a script) and it's simpler for the app dev to write the code for as well. I recognize this is probably because I first learned about config files on a Unixy system, it's not the "native way" for Windows, and other people have stronger cases for their preference,…

Your argument breaks down even between 'Unixy' systems. Linux programs that follow the XDG base directory specification write to those, whereas macOS programs tend to write to ~/Library/Preferences or ~/Library/Application Support, neither of which exist on Linux, or even BSDs.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Re: Dotfile madness (2019)

#59

Post by viraptor »

avsteele wrote: post #40
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #33

What I personally find more egregious are dotfiles and dot-dirs on Windows , created by half-baked ports of Unix-first software (such as `ssh`). Windows has `%APPDATA%` and `%LOCALAPPDATA%` that are accessible with `ShGetKnownFolderPath`[0], using the appropriate `KNOWNFOLDERID`[1]; all programs should put their configuration and cache data in these paths. Windows also doesn't know what the dot at the beginning of a…

When using .Net 6 I use Environment.GetFolderPath( SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData) in Windows this maps to ~/AppData/Local An in Linux to ~/.local/share so it is configured well

I'm not sure I'd call that configured well. On Linux, share is supposed to contain static data used by the app, not the changing configuration that normally goes into appdata on Windows. For config the equivalent should be ~/.config/appname

Re: Dotfile madness (2019)

#60

Post by Spivak »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #56
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #33

What I personally find more egregious are dotfiles and dot-dirs on Windows , created by half-baked ports of Unix-first software (such as `ssh`). Windows has `%APPDATA%` and `%LOCALAPPDATA%` that are accessible with `ShGetKnownFolderPath`[0], using the appropriate `KNOWNFOLDERID`[1]; all programs should put their configuration and cache data in these paths. Windows also doesn't know what the dot at the beginning of a…

I don't find it egregious at all. Nobody should go out of their way to integrate with Windows APIs when files work just fine everywhere.

It’s basically the same as looking up $XDG_CONFIG_HOME on GNU/Linux.
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