Dotfile madness

#1

Post by boreq » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

Re: Dotfile madness

#2

Post by Jaruzel » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

This isn't just a Linux problem. In Windows, the users /documents folder is polluted in exactly the same way these days.

Re: Dotfile madness

#3

Post by Memosyne » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

Why do programmers do this? What thought process leads to someone thinking this is a good idea?

Re: Dotfile madness

#4

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

One thing I’ve been thinking about is that it would be nice to tag files with the program that created them. Aside from the clutter in my home directory, I have a lot of files that I have to guess as to where they originated from based on metadata like modification timestamps or permissions, but it would be nice to see something like “~/.config was created by some-tool”.

Re: Dotfile madness

#5

Post by Epskampie » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

On the one hand this is annoying, on the other it’s great that you can just backup your home dir and have all your files and settings in one go.

Also this annoyance is easy to solve, just make one dir in home (my is called after my name) and put all your own files in there.

Re: Dotfile madness

#6

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

Memosyne wrote: post #3

Why do programmers do this? What thought process leads to someone thinking this is a good idea?

It’s a convenient place to store user data that works across platforms.

Re: Dotfile madness

#7

Post by s3m4j » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

Jaruzel wrote: post #2

This isn't just a Linux problem. In Windows, the users /documents folder is polluted in exactly the same way these days.

It's often worse on Windows, since dotfiles aren't hidden and meny dev tools assume they'll be running on *nix even when they support Windows. https://imgur.com/a/Im6G20B capture from my windows box of my $HOME.

Re: Dotfile madness

#8

Post by Epskampie » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

Memosyne wrote: post #3

Why do programmers do this? What thought process leads to someone thinking this is a good idea?

In a way a users settings are ‘personal files’, so it can be argued they go in home.

Re: Dotfile madness

#9

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

Jaruzel wrote: post #2

This isn't just a Linux problem. In Windows, the users /documents folder is polluted in exactly the same way these days.

[deleted]

Re: Dotfile madness

#10

Post by xaduha » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

> We are no longer in control of our home directories.

I can axe my home folder and rebuild it with `nixos-rebuild switch`, it's pretty minimal.