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Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

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Re: Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

#81

Post by Foy »

acabal wrote: post #75

I hate having dotfiles in ~/ for the same reason why I hate "My Documents" in Windows: because it's supposed to be my space that I organize, not a generic dumping ground for your config files, brand-named folders, or other nonessential garbage. I want my space to be mine . Keep your app's stuff out of there!

On Windows I've retreated to Desktop which remains fairly sane as long as I opt-out or remove shortcuts being created after an install.

"My Documents" is a nightmare... I think only one folder (out of nearly a dozen) and only one file are actually of my making.

Re: Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

#82

Post by dchest »

DeepDuh wrote: post #65
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OS X has a ~/Library directory that houses application settings and much else. It is hidden by default. There is no question there is a need to have a place that "plebeian users" can't access. IMO, dot-files and dot-directories are as good as anywhere.

OSX, because of its big corporate watchdog, and the separation of the 'GUI' layer and the unix layer, has the cleanest directory structure by far IMO. Most of the times you don't even need a manpage or google to find out how to repair a misbehaving application - just delete its plist in ~/Library/Preferences, possibly also its ../ApplicationSupport directory. The OSX defaults system is so well designed, every time I…

had the cleanest directory structure until 10.8:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Application Support/Preview

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preview.plist

Re: Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

#83

Post by DeepDuh »

DeepDuh wrote: post #65
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OS X has a ~/Library directory that houses application settings and much else. It is hidden by default. There is no question there is a need to have a place that "plebeian users" can't access. IMO, dot-files and dot-directories are as good as anywhere.

OSX, because of its big corporate watchdog, and the separation of the 'GUI' layer and the unix layer, has the cleanest directory structure by far IMO. Most of the times you don't even need a manpage or google to find out how to repair a misbehaving application - just delete its plist in ~/Library/Preferences, possibly also its ../ApplicationSupport directory. The OSX defaults system is so well designed, every time I…

Why can't I reply to some comments? That comment about the new sandboxed folder structure made me realize he's right. What's going on with all those symlinks inside the container directory?

This just shows to me what a bad idea sandboxing is for those kind of apps that are supposed to interoperate with the whole system. Is there even a security benefit vs. pure unix permissions if you sandbox the filesystem but then you link in tons of crap that could be potentially attacked?

Re: Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

#84

Post by zapu »

acabal wrote: post #75

I hate having dotfiles in ~/ for the same reason why I hate "My Documents" in Windows: because it's supposed to be my space that I organize, not a generic dumping ground for your config files, brand-named folders, or other nonessential garbage. I want my space to be mine . Keep your app's stuff out of there!

Microsoft now encourages to use AppData/ which is much better.

Re: Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

#85

Post by takluyver »

jeltz wrote: post #77
keyist wrote: post #2

Instead of putting a dotfile or dotdir in the user's home directory, do follow the XDG Base Directory specification: http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-l... . It's easy to understand and requires only a marginal increase in effort/code.

I would have preferred if it did not rely on environment variables since almost nobody sets them which means there will be untested code in applications implementing the specification.

Where possible, applications should rely on tested libraries to implement the specification, like PyXDG.

Re: Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

#86

Post by acabal »

chris_j wrote: post #78
acabal wrote: post #75

I hate having dotfiles in ~/ for the same reason why I hate "My Documents" in Windows: because it's supposed to be my space that I organize, not a generic dumping ground for your config files, brand-named folders, or other nonessential garbage. I want my space to be mine . Keep your app's stuff out of there!

Where would you choose to put application config instead?

Literally anywhere but my personal space. Why not have /etc//? I could even live with a single ~/.config/ but very few apps use that.

Re: Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

#87

Post by onli »

gioele wrote: post #79
moe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see no benefit. It's not at all easy to understand, nor easy to implement, nor does it have any tangible advantages. It's one of these superfluous pseudo-standards that do nothing but add needless clutter. But gladly nobody seems to be using it anyway, I see only one directory in my ~/.local: vlc.

> I see no benefit. The first benefit is that it removes clutters from your $HOME. The second benefit is that you can now manage and backup your settings in a sane way. * ~/.config contains config files (should not be lost, but if lost you can recreate them); * ~/.local contains user data files (save them often, never lose them for they are not replaceable); * ~/.cache contains cached information (can be tmpfs mounte…

> The first benefit is that it removes clutters from your $HOME.

Invisible clutter? That's a strange concept.

But the rest of your point indeed makes sense. It still is easier and probably comment to backup the whole $HOME. But those points you can see as a benefit, though not obvious.

Re: Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

#89

Post by gnufs »

acabal wrote: post #75

I hate having dotfiles in ~/ for the same reason why I hate "My Documents" in Windows: because it's supposed to be my space that I organize, not a generic dumping ground for your config files, brand-named folders, or other nonessential garbage. I want my space to be mine . Keep your app's stuff out of there!

I am using a manually created /data partition as my personal space. Many dotfiles and 'dotdirectories' are distro+release specific. With having all my personal data in a separate partition makes switching distros (or using multiple ones) a breeze as I start with all my data intact and a virgin /home which I can populate with my dotfiles as I see fit.

Re: Rob Pike: the origin of dotfiles

#90

Post by mavroprovato »

acabal wrote: post #75

I hate having dotfiles in ~/ for the same reason why I hate "My Documents" in Windows: because it's supposed to be my space that I organize, not a generic dumping ground for your config files, brand-named folders, or other nonessential garbage. I want my space to be mine . Keep your app's stuff out of there!

My Documents was never meant to be a storage space for application settings. Application Data / AppData is the place for this. Of course, whether an application complies with this depends on the developer, and many applications break that rule
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